My neighbors on the next street are friends of mine, even though they have 4 kids in the 5 and under age range. The Mom doesn’t get out much without the kids, and they don’t have reliable transport to go farther than the grocery store anyway, so she and I planned an outting to a nearby city with a mall in it for this weekend. She decided to take Child #2, who is 4 years old.
We got into the car, and I buckled Child into the back seat, since she’s old enough not to require a carseat anymore. Before we could get 5 miles, she is unbuckling herself and telling Mom that she’s uncomfortable and can she stand up?
Mom says yes, that’s fine, as long as you’re still and don’t get too rambunctious. We were pulling up to a red light as this was happening, so I decided to try something. I turned to Child and said ‘No, you need to stay buckled in to the seat. I wouldn’t want you to be hurt if we were in a wreck.’ To my surprise and relief, Mom agreed, yes, sit back in the seat and buckle up.
Child didn’t move. The light changed, and I turned on the hazard lights. We waited. Eventually, she buckled herself in, and, with a few short stops and reminders, remained buckled safely in for the rest of the trip.
On the way back, Mom told me she had been ticketed not long ago to the tune of $101 for seatbelt violations.
My question: What is so hard about this? The mom doesn’t make her kids use seatbelts! It is the law! Not only is it the law, it’s dangerous not to do it! Besides which, it’s expensive when you get caught! Does she not value her kids? Is it worth the savings of time to not secure them into the car and risk killing the 3 of them not in carseats?
ohhhh. this is a BIG pet peeve of mine. At least once a week or so I will pass or be beside a car with a kid just bouncing around, standing up, etc.etc. What the hell are these parents thinking?? I just slow down along side the car and motion towards the kid (and sometimes the parents) tugging on my seatbelt. I usually just get dirty looks. But , Good Lord, obviously someone has to. The ticket should be more than 100 bucks, IMHO.
so you found a girl who thinks really deep thoughts. what’s so amazing about really deep thoughts? Tori Amos
I have often thought that if I was a cop, all I would do is ticket parents who don’t buckle their kids in. Good for you, missdavis, for standing your ground.
Dizzy
You people have been holding me back long enough! I’m going to clown college!
i pulled up next to a car one day on the way to work, a beautiful baby girl was sitting on the moms lap in the passenger side. the plates were out of province. I motioned to roll down the window, which they did.
I told her (angrily) : " Around here you have to buckle your kids! You will get a big fine if you dont! The cops here dont put up with that!"
She looked stunned, but not angry. All the provinces as far as I know have had the same legislation so she has no excuse.
It makes me sick, truly. Almost as sick as I get when I see a parent puffing away on a smoke with kids in the car, and all the windows up.
My rules are: absolutely no one, I don’t care if they are children or adults, rides in my car without a seatbelt. If they don’t like it, they can walk.
As for parents that don’t enforce it, regardless of the law, it’s irresponsible parenting if a parent allows their kids to roam freely in the car. Not only is it unsafe, but also creates unneeded distractions for the driver.
Not only does my five year old have to wear a seatbelt, we have her in a big-kid car seat. It’s a lot more comfortable than the normal lap/shoulder belt and probably 10-times as safe. And don’t even think about putting her in the front seat. No way. Never. Man, it’s such a small thing to do to buckle them up, and they’re you kids, goddamn it! Nothing is too safe for them.
my cars do not move until everyone is buckled; we’ve even gone so far as to take two cars if there weren’t enough seatbelts.
And in the same vein, Kids & matches/lighters:
When our girls were of an understanding age, say 4, we took them through an Owie House to show them what fire does. The black and stink made a huge impression, and we’ve never had a problem with them on that score!
Having two kids, we take the seat belt thing very seriously. My 3 year old has chewed Grandma out for not putting her seat belt on, even when Grandma is sitting in the back seat. Yay!
There have been numerous times that we’ve flagged down police cars and sent them after vehicles where a kid was bouncing around unrestrained. You know, there’s something really evil about the gleeful smile those cops get as they race off to fix it. Gotta love it. We’ve never once had an officer ignore it or brush us off.
I mean, come on folks, if you don’t give a shit about your kids, try looking at it this way (no flak, come on, we have to get their heads out of their butts and get them thinking SOMEHOW) – in the event of a collision, ANYTHING unrestrained can become a deadly missile. Imagine the headlines: Stupid #@#$*%& parent decapitated by flying baby!
The rule in my car is that it doesnt work unless you are seat belted in. My son has unbuckled himself just once and he now knows that we will just sit there and wait until he is buckled for the car to move.
What gets me is when the adults in the car are buckled in but the kids are standing, or sitting on their laps. As adults we make choices for ourselves AND our kids… how people can put their children in jeopardy is beyond me.
We are, each of us angels with only one wing,and we can only fly by embracing one another
Yep…buckle those kids in…my son is grown now…but believe me…when he was growing up…the car didn’t move unless he was buckled in…and if he goes with me somewhere now…same rule…he laughs at me now because he remembers his younger days when I did the same…but…as I tell him often…“you’ll never be too big for your mom to bring you down” and he believes it…or at least pretends to…
“Do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda
You wanna know something about me…ask me…not my friends…
My 3 year old is always buckled in. What amazes me about this thread is that some of you accually communicate with others in traffic. I guess I’ve lived in South Florida too long. You would get shot or accosted if you tried that around here. Every day there are fist-fights at intersections. People run red lights and drive aggressively. God, I’d move if the weather wasn’t so good.
leave it to MPSIMS to have a thread containing 10 posts of different people repeating “the care doesn’t go unless everybody is buckled” hehe. I’m not bashing the idea, it’s my rule too…but WE GET THE POINT
The only thing a nonconformist hates more than a conformist is another nonconformist who does not conform to the prevailing standards of nonconformity.
As another perspective on the thing, it isn’t just your kids, or any passengers in the car, that you put in danger when the kids are loose.
We know of one situation where a mother driving a van turned around briefly to try to control her kids who were bouncing around. In the process the van jumped the sidewalk and killed a pedestrian.
I went through about two weeks when my daughter was about 18 months old, wondering if I was going to be arrested for child abuse every time I buckled her into the car seat. She stiffened up and screamed bloody murder–it took both hands and a knee to get her fastened in–but after that she never gave me any more trouble. I’m glad I didn’t give up the fight.
Anybody that rides with me wears a seat belt or doesn’t go anywhere.
I really get pissed when I see a sign that says child on board and the kids are bouncing around in the back seat or lying in the window. I’m supposed too be really extra careful, because you can’t buckle your kids in.
I taught my sister well. She went through a rollover without a scratch. She wasn’t driving.
Once, I saw a woman driving along the road in front of my house with her children in an old van. The back slilding door had been removed, and thin rope was strung across the gap, and it was there that two small children sat, their feet * dangling outside of the vehicle * their tiny hands gripping that little rope. She was going at least fifty miles per hour. My best friend was stitting with me in the living room, we said simultaneously, “Jesus! Did you * see* that?!?”
For about three months last year I had to pick up my two cousins and bring them home from school. They were 7 and 9, I think.
I got them to buckle up by playing “airline”. Complete with pilot’s voice. “Ladies and Gentlement, Flight 161 home from school is now ready for takeoff. Please buckle your seatbelts and thank you for flying United.” They loved it.
– Sylence
I don’t have an evil side. Just a really, really apathetic one.
Phouka:
An Owie House is one that has burned. The one in the example had an extreme kitchen fire, so the kitchen was gutted. The rest of the place was pretty well smoke damaged. We took the kids through it, pointing out the danger of fire in general and matches/lighters in particular. The ‘Owie’ refers to hurt. After that, whenever they found matches, etc, they brought them to us rather than play with them, for which they received positive reinforcement.
Over twenty years ago when seat belt safety was not an issue, my mother let my toddler brother stand in the front seat (unbuckled) while she drove.
We really have a hoot over that parenting faux pas.
P.S. Another memory: The vehicle was an AMC Concorde (the car, not the plane) that ended up blowing up at a populated intersection. No one died or got hurt so we have a laugh riot over that one, too.
We never go anywhere without buckling our kids securely into their car seats. But I can’t help remembering how many thousand miles I logged playing, unrestrained in the back of my parents’ station wagon, or sitting on lawn chairs (!) in that old van we had for a while, or riding in the back of my great uncle’s pickup on country roads. I’m also sure that both my brother and I must have been on mom’s lap when we were tiny. My parents were quite careful as a rule, too. Times have changed.
I wonder what we parents are doing now that will horrify our children when they are old enought to have kids.