Something that really bothers the hell out of me is seeing a moving vehicle with infants and toddlers NOT strapped into their car seats. I actually saw a lady holding an infant, pumping gas, and when she all was said and done, she got in her car and drove off still holding the infant! I got her plates and called the police. I only hope that they caught this idiot lady. Since I see infants/toddlers not strapped in on a daily basis, I was wondering if this is a problem all over the place, or is it just a problem in the Rio Grande Valley?
Hahahaha. I join the ranks of Jeff, DoD, and heypartner, not even close in quality of those guys. Let me amend my statement. I understand that sometimes it has to be done, I guess, but what really gets me is when I see them standing on someone's legs, or by themselves running around in the backseat.
I'll never forget the day I was driving down the feeder road next to beltway eight, and some lady came speeding by me doing what had to have been at least eighty ('cuz I know I was doing close to 60) She had five kids of various ages in the back seat, and four more in the front seat with her. In her Toyota Corolla.
I recently had to put my son into a booster seat for safety reasons. His size and weight were such that he is able to ride without one, but when we would drive, he would get to where he would sit on his knees (still seat belted in of course) so he could look out the window. I see him do things at home all the time and think to myself, "is he dumb? Does he not uinderstand how bad that could hurt?" Then you realize they just do not know any better or have any fear until they have been hurt by doing something. Its a tough call, but the bottom line is as a parent you have to realize they do not know any better, or the risks involved with allowing them to do things like that. They do not know it can result in an injury, as a parent we MUST protect them from having to experiencing pain for the sake of learning a lesson.
Technically, it would have been going by me at twenty miles per hour or less. I just happened to look over and catch the four kids in the front seat. Two young teens or older pre-teens; each with a toddler in their lap. Kinda freaked me out, so I didn't really catch the back seat until she was in front of me. That's when I saw all the heads in the back seat. The driver wasn't exactly svelt either, so I don't know how they got into the front seat (don't those things have buckets?). The car was definitely sitting low to the grount too.
Or maybe a little more than twenty miles an hour. Either way, it was plenty of time for a head count. I didn't even have to use my toes to count that high.
My older son gets mad when I try to put him in his car seat. Of course, he is about to turn 14. Seriously, though, I could understand about 20 years ago when people didn't use car seats because the issue was not all that out in the open, at least not in the same way it is now. These days, though, I don't understand it because there's no reason someone shouldn't know better. But I don't know these people, so I can't say what they're thinking.
A car going 20 MPH faster than you travels around 30 feet per second faster than you. Lets say your car is 10 feet long, that gives you 1/6 of a second (considering the car has to have already passed 1/2 of your car so you can see into their front seat) to catch the fact that two kids 10-14 years old are in the front seat with two toddlers on their lap and an overweight woman driving. Again, pretty impressive .
