What if you looked down from your work shuttle bus and saw a little girl, maybe 5 or 6, riding in the front seat of a taxi with no seatbelt or car seat - and then you got the cab's license plate number? Quasit wonders if he should report the incident:
I don't want to get some poor taxi driver in trouble for having his or her daughter along in the taxi...but I'm pretty sure that young children are NOT supposed to be riding in the front seat, particularly not without car seats!
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Comments
It's all about
By Kaz
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 9:47am
Timing.
If you didn't report it at the time it was happening, chalk it up to "lucky nobody got hurt" and leave it at that. If you're not going to stop something like that when it's happening, then it's too late to do anything about it other than tattle...to what end? No one is going to care about a cab driver's kid 3 days after they were endangered once.
What I would do
By Gary McGath
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 11:17am
Absolutely nothing. I have more respect for myself than to turn in kids to the seat belt police. But I suppose some people get a feeling of power every time they can intrude on someone else's life.
I agree
By Ron Newman
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 12:19pm
Why is this my business at all? It was fairly routine when I was a kid, anyway.
I agree. While it is not
By ShadyMilkMan
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 1:54pm
I agree. While it is not safe for the child to be in the front seat the driver probaly had the child along because a baby sitter dropped out or any number of different reasons. I would assume the van doesnt have a seat, AND the child was not supposed to be on the job. So telling on the driver can cost the driver his job, not cool.
Unless the author of the original blog knows the person the best thing to do is stay mute about it. I only call the police when an action by another driver is possibly threatening to me or other people, like if there were teenagers in the next car over wrestling with each other, bumping into the driver and smoking pot ect.
I agree with you to an extent...
By eeka
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 8:49pm
...but I also have worked in a brain injury rehab and a school for children with profound disabilities, so I'm quite an advocate of seatbelt and helmet laws. From the most concrete standpoint, it costs millions of dollars of your and my tax money when someone sustains a brain injury. Most of these are preventable. Aside from the financial costs, I just think it's in everyone's best interest to prevent these injuries. They really shatter the lives of the person's friends and families.
I probably wouldn't call the cops though. I'd be more likely to e-mail the mayor's office and encourage further education. The families in my agency's infant/toddler program all know that they'd better not be taking children in cabs or any other vehicles without proper carseats, and we've done this by educating them, not by threatening them. But every day I see kids without carseats and helmets. I've even seen police officers drive past young kids on bikes without helmets, and they don't stop to find the parents and remind them about helmet laws. This is what needs to be happening.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
There's plenty of things
By pierce
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 11:39am
There's plenty of things about your own life you can improve with that energy. Mind your own business.
She should repeat three times daily
By Marc
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 12:34pm
She should repeat three times daily:
Individual Sighting - Societal Problem
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 2:01pm
We have dozens of laws to protect folks out there ... some knowledge of them among police, and some funding to enforce them would be a more-than-welcome start.
I see too many people with piles and packs of untethered kids in cars (six across the back seat, in one case, with two on the lap of another in front) and 90% appear to be recent immigrants who probably don't know better. Why? Likely because the rules test in this state is a total joke. Same for seat-belt laws, although it tends to be older white people with very local lives I see with that problem (bumper stickers tell you a lot in either case).
I also see too many kids illegally biking without helmets. That's right - illegally. Their parents don't know because there is little outreach and there are no provisions in these laws for enforcement.
Those of us who travel with (formerly) small kids know full well that taxis don't haul around child seats anyway. I've seen plenty of kids not in seats in taxis for this reason.
So go ahead and nag individuals ... or nag individuals to worry about individuals and not do anything until they themselves are perfect. The real problem - and the cost to society - marches merrily along, kills people, and drains our collective resources.
Stuffing kids in the back seat
By Ron Newman
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 3:18pm
If we want people to stop driving SUVs and use fuel-efficient vehicles instead, maybe we need to accept that people will do this. We did it when we were kids, and survived OK.
I drive a sedan that gets
By ShadyMilkMan
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 3:26pm
I drive a sedan that gets about 8 mpg more than my friends SUV yet my sedan holds the same number of people comfortbaly (5) and I even have the ability to legally have six people in my car (the front is a convertable bench so the arm rest moves.) My car is also more spacious. Sure there are SUVs out there that hold more people but they would use even more gas and are less efficient than a comparable mini-van.
Its about more sensible options. I need a car that can hold people and stuff, and needs to carry on for long distances on highways so I had a few choices. I went with a medium (larger end of medium) sedan with a large trunk rather than an SUV. Its not as good as a small car, or a hybrid but it is better than the SUV. A lack of SUVs is not why those kids are without seatbelts.
No
By adamg
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 3:32pm
No, no, no, no.
Just because you survived childhood without seat belts (as did I; a treat for us was driving around in the tiny little jumpseats in the back of my uncle's Checker cab, and, yes, I remember my father putting his arm out to brace me when he had to stop short) doesn't mean that today's safety measures are wrong.
An unbelted kid in the front seat will likely die in a head on collision, either from being thrown about the cabin or being suffocated by the airbag.
If you can afford a car, you can afford a car seat. And you can put it in the back, where it belongs.
and they make it so easy
By ShadyMilkMan
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 3:39pm
and they make it so easy with the new cars. My car, which doesnt look very "kid friendly" has the ability to put three kid seats in the back and has special loops and other crazy things which Im sure would make more sense if Ive seen a modern child seat. I skipped over that part of my instruction book.
Car Seats not the SUV problem
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 3:49pm
I can fit five children in my compact-chassis minivan, six if my 12.5 year old who very likely outweighs Ron is up front (he's grown a bit since you last saw him).
I could do this even if four kids were in car seats. My dad, aunt plus the four of my family fit in my Dad's subcompact Mazda 5. All six of us were in individual bucket seats, all belted in - meaning any of the four rear seats would hold a car seat. This vehicle gets 25 city/35 highway.
Carseats are often used as an excuse for having a large SUV, but they are a flimsy one. Vans, minivans and microvans (i.e. Mazda 5) hold far more people for their exterior size and weight than an SUV.
Also the people who most
By ShadyMilkMan
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 4:07pm
Also the people who most often leave their kids outside of a carseat tend to be poorer than the general population. An SUV that can hold 8 goes for quite a bit more than a van that holds 8.
Its hard to feel bad for someone who is having a hard time putting food on the table when they roll up in a Chevy Suburban. Forget about gas for a second, those big SUVs are wicked expensive.
I've been a passenger in the
By Goldie Wilson
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 4:41pm
I've been a passenger in the flatbed of a truck before, doesn't mean it's a good idea.
Taxis/drivers exempt?
By alkali
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 2:17pm
I seem to recall that taxis are exempt from the child seat law, or at least that it is not the responsibility of the taxi driver to comply.
Something like that
By Gareth
Tue, 08/05/2008 - 2:27pm
(From the MGL)
So getting on the taxi driver's case isn't likely to accomplish much. The way the law is written, it seems it exempts not only fares but any kids riding in the taxi, front or back.