illegal and dangerous: speeding
placing minors at risk: simply present in the car
in a position to do something about it: When would you not be in a position to pick up a phone?
So now, by your logic, if somebody is merely speeding with a child in the car, “you should, like do something about it”. You are changing your argument with each new post.
It was a petty offense. period.
In case you can’t grasp that concept:
petty adj; Of small importance; trivial: a petty grievance.
To me, that means “of not warranting getting all upset, calling the police, and hoping they got taken to jail”
I dont know about where you live, but the cops around here have REQUESTED that you call them if you see someone with their kids unrestrained in a car. See, they dont like scraping up children off the road.
These kids were not “simply present in the car.” They were unrestrained in a moving vehicle, presumably standing, and hanging out the sunroof. That is not “merely speeding with a child in the car.”
That is arguably child endangerment, which is not a “petty offense.” If you don’t grasp that concept, try looking up “child” and “endangerment.”
I realize your argument is easier to make if you ignore the realities of the situation under discussion, but I’m not willing to allow you to do that. Sorry.
I know that. Did you read wring’s definition of when the cops should be called? Did you see where I said that merely speeding with a child in the car fits into that definition?
Now then, regarding child endangerment, in the Supreme Court case GAIL ATWATER v. CITY OF LAGO VISTA, a woman was arrested for the misdemeanor offense of letting her five year old stand in the front seat of a pickup truck. She was not charged with Child Endangerment, but she was cited a $50 fine and released within an hour. She sued, saying she should not have been arrested for the petty offense. (admittedly this was a case of 4th ammendment and probable cause issues and she lost the case, the court ruling that in Texas, she could legally be arrested for any traffic offense besides speeding and open containers)
I submit for your perusal this fine argument:
(bolding mine)
“one, the legislature has imposed an extremely minimal penalty”
As have all fifty states.
"two, it’s not child endangerment because you are set – by virtue of the fact that if we were to call this child endangerment then not using your turn signal or perhaps speeding or running a red light, those are just as close to any possible harm as not wearing a seat belt. "
Hmm that’s remarkably similar to what I’ve been saying all along.
wring- I wanted to let this one slide because most of the arguments regarding logical fallacies I have seen tend to degrade into obnoxious backquoting of everybody pointing out all previous logical fallacies, which then incite more. It can degenerate into a never ending circle.
Everybody is guilty of this. I can point out logical fallacies by most of the posters in this thread, including myself .
But since you said, “I still win”…
It’s been 14 years since I’ve taken a college logic course and my memory of the specifc fallacies is rusty, but I suggest you read up on logical fallacies before you accuse me of one while you are in the very process of committing the same fallacy. In this case I am not even guilty of the one you describe.
My point was that it was a simple traffic violation, therefore it’s not necessary to get all upset, call the cops, and hope they got taken to jail. My assertion that the police have better things to do than make a special trip to track down and give some lady a petty traffic ticket is but one, albeit more concrete, justification of my argument. Not the premise.
By attacking an argument that was different than mine, you are the one guilty of the straw man fallacy in this case.
Again, not a straw man. I’m asserting that by your own definitions of when it is necessary to call the police, you would be calling them for at least 1 in 10 cars with children on the road. Furthermore, the statistic illustrates how perhaps the behavior, while irresponsible, is not necessarily that out of the ordinary and/or outrageous.
You, however, are again attacking an argument I did not provide (at least in the quoted post).
Again, most of us here are guilty of these, but those in glass houses should not throw stones.
Yes, I have called the police on people speeding excessively, especially when they’re driving recklessly. It’s not just about them being a horse’s ass; their being a horse’s ass can hurt me or someone else. I have a severe aversion to car accidents, and a simple phone call can save lives. The police welcome calls like this because there’s not enough police manpower to catch everyone.
There are seatbelt adapters for kids in that situation. I don’t call the cops for that; I can’t see who is or who is not in restraints.
I saw this statistic in my child safety seat class that I took while pregnant. That doesn’t refer to children not in seats, it refers to seats that are not properly installed or in car seats that are not appropriate for the child’s size.
The fine for improper restraint may be minor in some states, but the ultimate price is a child’s life. It’s a shame to see that some of you value them so little.
The statement you quoted was made by a lawyer petitioning on behalf of the mother. If one of the justices had said that they you’d really have something.
Here’s what happened to a toddler who was in a seat belt but not a car seat:
The CHP is serious about their state’s seat belt laws; $271 for the first offense and up to $500 fine for repeat offenders. They also equate unrestrained children with child neglect & endangerment cite(pdf)
I’m not talking about simply failing to buckle up your children. I’m not talking about simply speeding. I’m talking about both, AND allowing the children to stand up in the car AND allowing them to hang out the sun roof. So kindly stop telling me how “petty” the various elements of this action are when viewed separately, when obviously what prompted the OP’er to call was the presence of all of them occurring at once. THAT is not a “petty” thing. THAT arguably amounts to endangering the children, and THAT is why she called. What part of this do you not get?
Since you want to talk about Illinois law, that state provides in part:
720 ILCS 5/12-21.6. Do it once, it’s a misdemeanor. Do it twice, it’s a felony. And while the statute does not specifically address th conduct we are discussing here, it does specifically state that leaving a young child alone in a vehicle for more than 10 minutes presumptively violates the statute. If even that conduct violates the statute and constitutes child endangerment, a very strong argument may be made by extrapolation that the behavior we are discussing here violates the statute as well. Most (if not all) other states likewise have child endangerment statutes (or reckless endangerment statutes) to criminalize the stupid endangerment of the health or safety of kids.
Further, as JEFF OLSON pointed out, you have cited to an oral argument before the Supreme Court, not to the decision of the case. Oral argument is when each side gets to state its position and say how it believes the court will rule; therefore, most oral arguments will include statements supporting diametrically-opposed interpretations of the law – one in favor, and one against. Neither has any value as a legal matter. As it happens, in this case you have cited to the losing side. The Supreme Court ruled that the Texas peace officer did have full authority to arrest Ms. Atwater on the spot and cart her off to jail, just for the misdemeanor of failing to have her kids buckled up in the front seat. And FYI, the cite to that case is Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, 523 U.S. 318 (2000), and you can read the opinion here.
Once again, there is NOT an “extremely minimal penalty” for child endangerment in ANY of the 50 states. Which brings us right back to the question of whether the actions under discussion here constitute child endangerment. You have done nothing but repeat over and over that they are not, but you have not explained why. I am not just talking about speeding. I am not just talking about a seat-belt violation. I am not just talking about letting your kids stand up in the car. I am not just talking about letting them hang out the window. I am talking about a situation that included all of those. You want to break this down into its component parts so that you may continue to argue about how minor each part is, but you are entirely failing to realize that the sum of those “minor” parts may equal something that is no longer “minor.”
It may not be a logicall fallacy, but it certainly is a logical failing, to continue to construe an argument as A or B or C or D, when it’s very clear that what we’re talking about is A and B and C and D.
OK, I’m hoping that at some point we can just agree to disagree, but I will again address this point by point.
I thought I clearly stated in my above post that this was not a ruling by the supreme court per se, but an uncontested, and even agreed upon, argument before them.
The germane question was whether the plaintiff could be arrested on the grounds that it (allowing a five year old to ride standing up in the front seat of a pickup truck) could have been construed as Child Endangerment, a felony. In this dialog, Justice O’Connor emphatically agreed that it did NOT constitute Child Endangerment.
The fact that this case was lost on the grounds that in Texas, (again, excepting speeding and open containters) ANY traffic violation can get you arrested, including but not limited to failure to properly restrain a child, running a stop sign, failure to use your turn signal, not wearing your own seat belt, or operating a motor vehicle with a burnt out tail light, is completey irrelavent.
Furthermore, citing specific laws on the books dealing with leaving children unattended in parked cars only backs up my position. Many states are writing laws to deal with leaving children in parked cars, and DUI with children in the car, specifically criminalizing these actions as felonious Child Endangerment (and rightly so). But there are already laws on the books making the failure to restrain a child a misdemeanor.
Jeff-
One cop’s legal opinion equals exactly as much as mine. Squat. Cite this case again after the prosecutor agrees to file the charges and the court convicts him.
Your link isn’t working for me (server not found) but if in California it’s a misdemeanor with a maximum fine of $271, how can it be (and by whom) be “equated” with child endangerment? I further question your source because this site lists the maximum fine for improper child restraint in California to be $100 for a first offense.
This link is also bad, but I managed to dig up the story. She had been drinking and taking cough syrup. Nobody, even me, wants kids in a car with a chemically impaired driver, be them restrained or not.
Jodi- I will concede that the sum of the two (or even three or four - though I’m not sure that allowing the tikes to stand up and put their heads out the window is a separate violation beyond mere restraint) petty violations could be more egregious than it’s constituent parts.
I still do not believe, and will not likely be swayed to believe, that the behavior depicted in the OP denotes Child Endangerment or that it necessitates the moral outrage and vigilantism of the OP.
Can we just agree that the behavior was irresponsible, and then agree to disagree on the perceived danger and severity of the actions, and therefore the warranted response?
That’s what the CHP says. At this time I don’t know if the law agrees with them.
Right, but she wasn’t leagally impaired and the kid was evidently killed by a faulty airbag.
Nice to see the “blind to the problem until it happens to me” mentality is alive and well. I hope for your sake you never see anything to make you consider changing your mind.
This is simply incorrect. Why on earth would you think the argument you cited to was “agreed upon”? It might have been “uncontested” in that, because it was totally tangential to the actual issue under discussion, the opposing side didn’t bother to address it, but that does not mean it was “agreed upon.”
Incorrect again. First, that was not the “germane question” and I suggest you read the case again if you think it was. Second Justice O’Conner did not “emphatically agreed that it did NOT constitute Child Endangerment,” but rather rhetorically took that argument to its logical extreme. That does not mean she agreed with it – she may have, but she may not, there’s no way to tell.
You are, however, correct that the fact that this case was lost on the grounds in Texas is totally irrelevant. What matters is that it was lost.
Good. Thank you.
Well, that’s your O, and frankly I’m not all that interested in changing it. Reasonable minds certainly can differ about when a given action becomes so objectionable that a complaint about it to the authorities is warranted. But YOU came into this thread being snotty and dismissive to the OP’er, taking the position that her decision to call the authorities was such an outrageous example of busybody-ness as to be totally indefensible. I am happy to agree to disagree with you on both the perceived danger and the severity of the response, but I hope that you will concede that your initial posts did not seem to reflect that you realized the OP’er’s opinion might legitimately differ with yours.
