Are we going to take away all parent’s responsibilities?
First there was a lock to put on your child’s Nintendo or whatever. Then there was Net-Nanny. Then there is the options on some tvs of blocking certain channels.
I heard on the news on friday that some car companies are going to install motion sensors in the back seat so that if the car is sitting for a while and it reaches a certain temperature inside the car, if the sensors detect motion (like from a small child or an animal), it will turn on the air conditioning.
Here’s a novel idea people: DON’T LEAVE YOUR CHILDREN OR PETS IN THE CAR FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME!! And make the penalty for leaving your children in the car so that they bake to death a stiff one! I am SO TIRED of all these new gadgets & technology that are designed to take over the parent’s responsibilities. Parents should have enough authority over their kids that they can say “No you may not play your video game or watch tv while I’m gone”, and have the kid listen to them!
And do the car companies really think that the types of assholes who leave their kids in locked cars are going to be able to afford their new minivan? No, they’re the types of idiot scum who should have their ovaries & testicles ripped out so they can’t bear any more kids. They’re the types of people who leave the kids in the car so they can go get stoned with their friends, or go play bingo with their cronies. Why do people want to make it easier for these fuckwads to be irresponsible parents? I swear, I think it should be mandatory for people to take an IQ test before they become parents, and if it’s below a certain level they should not be allowed. And thay people who abuse their children or murder them by leaving them in hot cars & stuff like that should have their reproductive organs removed.
[standing… cheering…]
“I thank the Lord there’s people out there like you.” — Bernie Taupin and Elton John, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
Let’s examine the attitudes contained in this:
All bad parents are poor.
Leaving children in a car, even with air conditioning, is intrinsically evil even though it doesn’t hurt them.
If you’re a good parent, your children will always obey your every command. Anyone who buys a product to back this up in case their kid disobeys is a bad parent.
Using technology to handle responsibilities is wrong. Like the telephone. Parents should walk over (because cars are technology) periodically to check up on their kids if the child is at a party and might need a ride home.
A basic human right should be denied if people do not pass a test that is widely known to not measure much of anything very well.
Moggy, you’re an idiot.
Libertarian, I’m disappointed in you.
–John
This is the BBQ pit, is it not? I am allowed to rant, am I not? I am allowed to voice my opinion even though it may be different from yours, am I not? I am allowed to write things in the heat of the moment and vent my annoyance, am I not?
Yes but not without consequence. If you express an offensive opinion, expect to be called on your attitude.
Did I say, moggy should be banned from the SDMB for being an idiot? No, the only person talking about banning people from things in this thread is you.
You can vent all you want. If you sound like an idiot, I can call you an idiot. You can bitch about being called like an idiot.
Isn’t it marvelous how this works?
–John
Yue, you’re mostly right, as you so often are.
The problem, or the fear if you prefer, is that once one of these things is discovered and marketed, it’s a short trip to making them mandatory.
You just watch. If this thing catches on, in about 5 years Congress will be mandating them (for the Children!), adding ~$200 to the cost of every damn car in the country.
Just like those third brakelights. I remember when a few safety-conscious folks bought them as aftermarket products - they appeared mostly on Volvos and big American boats, as I recall. Then some genius noticed that they actually work – people with a third brakelight got in fewer rear-end collisions.
Gee, might that have been because they were a novelty? Or because folks likely to buy them had different driving habits? Ah, who cares, we need to end rear-end collisions because Children sit in the back!!!
I’d love to see if there is an outcome study on those things. Because I’d bet that over the long term they didn’t reduce rear-end collisions even a little bit, and the cost of the damn things is worked into the cost of every American automobile.
So if we could only interrupt the cycle of good idea = mandatory idea, you’d be 100% right. But for now, I fear that the mere existence of a product like this will add to everyone’s costs eventually.
Hey, I don’t care about this product one way or another. I just take issue with the attitudes expressed in the OP, especially that
a) All bad parents are poor
and
b) Using technology makes you a bad parent.
–John
And you are 100% right about both points. I just wanted you to understand why Lib might cheer the OP on.
The devices are useful for a) People predisposed to leave their children in the car for extended periods during hot weather (an evil group to begin with) and b) pissed off judges sentencing people convicted of doing “a,” by requiring them to install the device and eventually c) the legislature making us all do it.
An actual good parent would not need such a device.
I can see this being useful, not as a replacement for good parenting, but as a supplement.
Scenario:
You are running into the post office for something. Temperature’s not too bad, and you’ll be back momentarily, so you leave your kid there while you run in. The kid’s not a baby, let’s say 8 or 9.
Something holds you up in line; maybe the guy ahead of you wants to pay postage to Zibabwe in popsicle sticks.
If you’re a bad parent without this gadget, you let your kid roast.
If you’re a bad parent with this gadget, you’re a dick but your kid survives.
If you’re a good parent without this gadget, you give up your place in line to go back and turn on the AC for junior.
If you’re a good parent with this gadget, you pat yourself on the back for investing in it and try not to kill the guy ahead of you.
If you’re a bad parent, it saves your kid from shitty parenting. If you’re a good parent, it helps you out.
The objection that it might become mandatory is a valid one, however.
–John
moggy Let me guess–you are under 28 and have no kids. I, of course, could be wrong, and will apologize now for generalizing, if that is the case.
I am 57 years old. A male. I have a daughter who is now 8.
One day, about 4 years ago, while driving her to pre-school(from which I would then continue to my place of work), I got 2 miles down the road past her school before I saw her moving in the rear-view mirror. She was in a car seat, and was very quiet, almost asleep.
Perhaps you can imagine my terror at realizing that I could have continued on to work, arriving there, and leaving her in the backseat of the car. I am acutely aware of newspaper stories of kids accidently left in the car,usually by a father, who forgets to drop them off at pre-school, and continues on to work.
Am I a bad father because of that incident? By the grace of someone/thing I escaped a potential tragedy. I only took her to school two days a week, but why I was so preoccupied that I drove past her school, I will forever wonder.
Manny added
Or just like those inconvenient seat belts! Stupid Congress. :rolleyes:
Sam, the difference between seatbelts and things like child protection locks, air conditioners, pop up clowns, portable teachers…whatever is that we ALL have bodies that can go through a windshield. But I don’t have kids. So I’d like to not have to pay for them
jarbaby
But jarbaby, it’s for the Chiiiiiildren!
I’ve deleted a poor-taste rant that I almost posted…I have no desire to make every parent on this board hate me. Suffice it to say that I personally think “for the children” is the Fourth Great Lie and a hell of a lousy way to run a country…
jayjay
No, samclem, more like those fucking useless airbags that modern cars have to carry. Why?
Well, some people didn’t want to wear their seatbelts. Hey, I believe there is a constiutional right to be stupid, so fuck 'em. Let 'em die.
Oh but we can’t have that. It’s! for! your! own! good!.
OK, so pass a law saying that everyone has to wear a seatbelt. Well shit, we can’t do that because it would infringe on people’s civll rights. Bad government.
So Congress, at the behest of a bunch of well-meaning fuckwits, passes a law mandating a passive restraint system. Which fairly quickly becomes the airbag system that we know and loathe today.
Hey, but the car companies make money on the deal, and now if my car is in some sort of collision, I now have a whole bunch of expensive shit to replace before I can drive it again. (I’ll save the detailed rant about airbags and seatbelts for another time and place). And I’m no fucking safer, and neither are you.
So, rather than piling on the sanctimonious propaganda (“all bad parents are poor”, “this will only be a supplement for good parenting” and other erroneous sattements), let us recognize and be alarmed at the way that an attempt to correct the behaviour of a few idiots may lead to another set of expensive and ineffective laws.
This reminds me of something Jerry Seinfeld said about the human race and our invention of the helmet. He said “We’re engaging in things that are cracking our skulls open…but instead of CEASING TO PARTICIPATE in those activities, we create a helmet so we can keep doing them.”
Good plan. :rolleyes:
jarbaby
Plenty of kids get killed each year by being left/forgotton in the car. Should this device be mandatory? No. Is it a good idea? Hell yes. I am not a parent, but I think there’s a huge line between creating a device which might save the lives of children/pets/suicidal parents who lost their kids, and devices meant to protect them from “bad influences” from the media.
And, uh, I don’t know where you live, Scruff, but around here it is against the law not to wear a seatbelt, at least in the front seats.
Besides, I don’t think there’s any chance that someone’s going to get potentially killed or injured by renegade air conditioning units in the car, while airbags can potentially injure you. (And the cost, also, is prohibitive.)
This is not an evil device. It’s like the device sold so you can open your trunk from the inside (should the need arise.) It’s not gonna pop up in your face, make you use an AVS, censor your favorite TV show, or make a protest about your favorite video game. It’s just gonna turn on the air conditioning if someone’s left in the car. But no… it’s a better idea to let the kid fry because the parent was an idiot, then kill the parent for killing the kid, as the opening suggests. YEE-HAW! We’re overpopulated anyways! :rolleyes:
Yeah, but the great thing about this device is that its going to use a motion sensor! IOW: It will continuously monitor what’s going on inside the car to see if someone’s in there and what the tempature is! Can you say, “Continuous Battery Drain?” I thought you could. So, let’s say its July, you’re hauling a bunch of stuff around in your car and you stop to eat lunch somewhere. You’re inside, eating and some of the stuff in your car shifts around. Uh, oh! Movement! Check the tempature! It’s 100 degrees! Turn on AC! You come out after lunch, and the car’s been running at least the AC (if not the engine) for some time. If its just running the AC, your battery might be dead! If its running the engine and the AC, you might be out of gas! In any case, what happens if you go a way on a trip for a number of days and leave your car parked? Its gonna keep checking for people inside and what the temp is. Good way to kill a battery.
Here in the Australian state of New South Wales, we are IIRC, living in the second most litigious place in the world after California. Everything has to be so fucking safe now because people and Govt. agencies are scared of getting their arses sued. It should be “NSW- THE NANNY STATE” on our car number plates.
Our State (and Federal) Government is obsessed with making mandatory every single little negligible safety improvement suggested by obscure studies on cars and other things.
Our suburban streets are fucking obstacle courses of chicanes, speed humps, roundabouts, and the like. I was told that objects in the mirror might be closer when I learned to bloody drive! I don’t need a dinky little sign on there to remind me. I had to pay an engineer big bucks to check an aftermarket rear seat I had installed in my van. Surprise, we found it was fitted safely by my trusty local mechanic. And it cost me a hundred bucks for him to tell me.
Consider the simple task of catching a train in Sydney. When I was a kid, you bought your ticket, walked down to the platform, the train came, you got on, you left. If you wanted to engage in the boyhood ritual of clinging to the bars, and leaning out of the open door at speed, you could. If you felt this might have been a tad unsafe, then you were free to go and sit down inside the carriage and do your bloody knitting instead. Easy. Not so now. These days, you go to buy a ticket, being mindful of the sign that warns you to keep an eye on valuables as you wait in line. You walk down the stairs minding your step -as per the obligatory sign of course. You wait behind the yellow safety line. If you forget to do this, nevermind, there will be an announcement over the loudspeakers soon enough to remind you. At night, you wait in the “NightSafe” area. You’ll still get mugged here, but at least the muggers can see what they are doing because of the better lighting.To pass the time, you are reminded that “the riding of bicycles, skatebords, and scooters on the platform is prohibited”. Ditto smoking “of any substance”. That loudspeaker sure is busy today. But it is, of course, only warming up for the big announcement that a train has arrived. Huh? A train? Arrived? Here? Surely not! I was wondering what that several hundred tons of steel was.
“Please stand back from the edge of the platform whilst passengers are alighting. Please keep a firm hold on children. After boarding, please vacate the vestibule area and move toward the centre of the car. Please keep a firm hold at all times.”
What’s next? “In order to board the train, please place one foot in front of the other. Repeat process until you notice a distinct traininess in your immediate surroundings”?
Then the guy on the train’s own public address system takes over. “This train is now due to depart. Please stand clear of the doors.The doors are now closing.” Then he shuts up for a minute, giving one time to read the millions of fucking signs which basically tell you not to even breathe. DO NOT PLACE YOUR FEET ON THE SEATS, NO SMOKING, ALCOHOL IS NOT PERMITTED, PRESS THIS BUTTON FOR EMERGENCY CONTACT WITH THE DRIVER. PENALTY FOR IMPROPER USE IS REMOVAL OF YOUR TESTICLES WITH A RUSTY BLADE, etc etc".
The playgrounds which I enjoyed as a kid are disappearing because the municipal councils are scared little bratty Jessica will stub her toe, and daddy the barrister will be in their face.
The pedestrian crossings at traffic lights have a beeping sound for blind people. Great! Deaf people can watch the lights like the rest of us. But wait, what about people who are deaf and blind, and are travelling about alone? No worries, we’ll tear out every control button mechanism on every light-controlled crossing, and replace them with one which doesn’t only beep, but VIBRATES as well. Just send the multi-million dollar bill to me, the taxpayer.
The traffic lights beep. The doors on the trains beep when they’re closing. Cars fucking beep when you’ve left your seatbelt off. Trucks beep when they reverse. The machinery I use at work beeps for ten fucking seconds before it starts. Just the thing twenty or thirty times in a shift.
Australia adopted all this kinda crap early. We admired the United States for having a whole lot less of it. Now, you guys are falling into the same trap. Safe and boring lives for us all!
To defend the OP a bit, I read it not as implying that all bad parents are poor, but more along the lines of “if you don’t have the minimal amount of responsibility to not leave your own children in the back seat of a hot car alone, you’re probably not running a Fortune 500 company.” Not that that’s necssarily correct, but it’s somewhat less preposterous than saying that all bad parents are poor.
I also figure that the device might be useful for keeping the windows unfogged if the teenagers happen to heat up the backseat area.
you forgot the blue lights in the railway station (and other public) toilets. Wonder how long it will be before someone injures themself because they can’t see what they are doing and sue Staterail over the new, innovative lighting.
Seriously though, I don’t see how the heat sensor alarms as I understand them are going to help much. Car alarms are ignored every day in car parks and on suburban streets.
We took a step in the right direction last year when we toughened up the penalties for parents who leave their children unattended in cars, now we need to have the balls to enforce them. (And if I ever see a kid in a carseat locked in a car I’ll break the goddamn window and the parents can sue me at their own peril).
BTW What do you think about the plans to pull volunteer lifesavers off our beachers because some tourist’s family may sue us if they don’t happen to be patrolling on the particular day and someone drowns as a result?