It sounds like they are. If they know the danger, then they are negligent.
What cases would those be? Cite?
Wow. With no comment on Dio as I didn’t read the original thread, I have to say that it completely amazes me that anyone that likes children at all would even consider that there could be any sort of excuse to leave one in a car long enough to kill it. Christ, I’ve been traveling with dogs for almost 40 years and I’ve never even gotten close to frying one - and this board keeps trying to convince me that parents love their children more than I love my pets.
That twaddle about “how people get into such a routine that they do things without even thinking about them” doesn’t fly - people manage to remember to go to an appointment instead of work, or get that box of Krispy Kremes out to take up to their co-workers. If it’s important, they remember. If nothing else, write a note!
BTW, I don’t know about other states, but in California it is illegal to leave a child six or under in a car alone, period. I’m quite sure that many people get away with doing so without being tossed in jail, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t illegal, even if it isn’t hot enough to fry up some baby.
Oh my God, this is just what this thread needed. Can we get Starving Artist in here too to bitch about how none of this would have been a problem in the 1950s, just to make the trifecta?
Once again, WE’RE NOT TALKING ABOUT INTENTIONALLY LEAVING A CHILD IN A CAR! We’re talking about forgetting a child is in a backseat car seat. In almost all of these cases, the child is asleep, usually in a rear-facing car seat normally present even when the child is not in the car.
As for notes, people don’t write notes not to forget their child in the car, because, like you and Dio, they are positive they could never do such a thing.
The fact that people “manage to remember to go to an appointment instead of work” is irrelevant. It’s not that the people in question can’t ever seem to remember to drop the baby off at day care. They do, hundreds of times. The problem is when the routine is altered, and they forget just once.
Forgetting a child in a car is not very likely to happen to anyone. But those who think it could never happen to them are fooling themselves.
The reason that airplanes and submarines and nuclear power plants have checklists is because even when expert operators have done things a thousand times, they can still forget to lower the landing gear or close the snorkel valve or to switch on those cooling pumps, leading to disaster. The point is that these things can happen to anyone.
You might ask how a pilot could attempt to land a plane without remembering to lower the landing gear. If such a pilot is piloting a commercial airliner and this failure leads to loss of life, is the pilot criminally negligent? Should the pilot serve prison time for murder?
Don’t be such an idiot, of course you are capable of accidentally injuring or killing your kid. There are a thousand ways a small child can die, and while a good parent keeps them as safe as possible, there are no guarantees in life. The kid could dart out into traffic, fall down the stairs, be bitten by the family dog, hit their head on the slide at the playground, get abducted by a pedophilic neighbour, etc, etc, etc. One could argue that any of these things involve at least a little negligence on the part of the parent - but parents, being human, are not infallible.
Sure, these things will not happen to most parents, and most kids survive their childhoods unscathed. But it’s stupid to insist that nothing bad could ever happen to your kids, and that’s essentially what you are doing.
Besides, as you keep ignoring in the other thread, you have clearly admitted your ability to leave your own child in the car:
A lapse of a few seconds is all it really takes, despite the fact that you want to pretend it isn’t. If you can make this brief error, I don’t see what’s stopping you from making an error of a greater magnitude.
May I beg you all to read the WaPo article before you share your opinion. Pretty please?
I promise you’ll have your mind changed, if only a little bit. I know many a person that, when that article was originally posted here, was almost as adamant as Dio that it could not possibly happen to them, instead they came out heartbroken and with a contingency plan to prevent this from happening to them.
I was one of them.
I take it then that you are an apologist for the parents of these crispy critters?
The state doesn’t care why you were so unconcerned about the whereabouts and safety of your baby that you ended up leaving it in the car. The law is that if the child is six or younger and is a car by itself, it’s illegal. It’s probably worded that way so that they can bypass all of the “I was distracted” excuses.
If you have a history of driving to work and not remembering how you got there, and whatever else that cite said, then I’d hope that you’d be smart enough to do something to remind you that today you were doing something different that was - theoretically - extremely important to you.
That is what you wish to believe. OTOH, hundreds or thousands of parents manage to have changes in their routines and not fry their kids.
Which is it? First they leave the kid in the car because their routine is changed, now it’s because they have the kid in the car a thousand times and then forget it once? You didn’t like the note idea, but now you note that these expert operators use checklists?
Probably. Well, manslaughter. You seriously think it’s ok for a pilot to just “forget” something that important?
It can’t happen to me. I don’t care what the article says. I’m on my third baby and it’s never happened once. It doesn’t happen to 99.99% of other parents either.
Are you talking to me? If so, what is the WaPo article?
Hell, yes that pilot should go to jail. Is that supposed to be a serious question.
Oh, great, the resident board idiots are coming out for this thread. **MsWhatsit **is right, we just need Starving Artist and we’ll be golden.
Look, I know you and **Dio **are apparently the first humans ever who don’t ever, ever forget anything, but the above is nonsense. First - it may surprise you, but a dog is not like a baby. When you load your dog in the car you don’t put it in a rear-facing carseat that effectively hides it from you. And I have never known a dog that didn’t sit up, all excited, when you get to your destination and open the door. That movement, and often noise, will remind you the dog is there even if you did forget. A small baby is likely to fall asleep in the car and stay asleep when you get out.
Second - do you really think people never forget those other things? Nobody has ever forgotten to go to an appointment? Nobody has ever accidentally left that box of doughnuts on the passenger seat and found them all gooey and melted later? The ‘brain fart’ is as universal a human experience as is possible, there is no way I believe that you have never had one.
I know what a baby is like. I have three kids. My youngest is still only one. I’ve driven thousands of times with babies in car seats, including with babies in rear facing car seats. I’ve never forgotten. That would not be possible for me.
Arrg. Are you ever going to admit that in the other thread you said that you have left you kid in the car, if only briefly.
I didn’t say that. I said I’ve lapsed for a second or two. It’s literally boiled down to starting to take a step and then remembering. That’s happened maybe two or thre times over ten years. I never actually walked away from the car.
That’s all it takes. If something else caught your attention in that moment, you could be in that article too. I know you’re never going to admit it, and I get that that helps you sleep through the night, but the ability to forget is right there.
So much bullshit, so little time. A good parent does not leave their child to die in the back seat of the car. You don’t forget your kids, I don’t care how “busy” you are. I’ll even go further than Dio has. I’ve never had a moment where I forgot my daughter was in the back seat. A good parent does not let their child cook to death in the car.
I don’t know about Dio, but I would never say that I haven’t forgotten anything. I am well aware that I am a human being, so when something is important I make sure that there will be some way that my memory will be jogged at the right time. Particularly when it’s important.
Stick with the things you pretend to know about. I have had several dogs that remain laying quietly until I open up the door to their crate, particularly the older ones who are still asleep. Every so often so asleep that I have to shake them awake, and those are the dogs that I am less likely to have taken with me in the car. As for the rear-facing carseat, even if you can’t see the baby are you trying to say you can’t see the carseat?
As I said, I’ve had them so I am smart enough to write a note or something to make sure that I don’t forget those things that are important. In case you haven’t noticed in your rush to judge, my point is that I simply cannot believe that people who claim to love these kids are allowing neglectful parents to excuse frying their kid in a car. I have never met anyone that would accept any excuse for frying a dog, and yet you all claim that the kids are more important?
Do you go around asking people this when you meet them? You must be a hit at parties.
Bolding mine
Nobody is making excuses for parents that go do their hair at the beauty salon and leave their kids in the car (which actually happened once). That is not what we are talking about.
And Dio, you don’t know me. I’ve never pitted any board member. People on message boards don’t piss me off enough, but I am worried about you. And I mean it. You are acting in a manner that is not your usual self. I have no idea what’s going on, and I don’t care enough to pit you, but I suggest, humbly, that you need to step back and take some time off.
Saying that you don’t care to acquire relevant information because no matter what you will not change your mind is, well, bizarre at least.
Fuck this. A good parent doesn’t forget his kid in the back seat.