The day I left my son in the car • Hacker News Board

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#91

Post by awj » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:45 PM UTC

jbellis wrote: post #20

mcphilip wrote: post #13

While it's tough to criticize the decision to leave a child in the car for a few minutes -- happened to me all the time as a child -- I'm forever scarred by seeing a dead child pulled out of a car in the office complex next to mine [1]. The dad was bashing his head against a tree trying to knock himself unconscious because he was so overcome with grief. Officers were trying to restrain him when his wife showed up and…

The very big difference is that child-bakes-in-the-car heat deaths are not because Dad left the kids in the car while he ran in to the store for a few minutes, but because Dad forgot the kid was in the car at all. http://www.parenting.com/article/tragedy-in-the-backseat-hot...

Even the link you cited claims that 15 minutes can be enough time under surprisingly temperate conditions. I've easily spent that amount of time waiting through lines on something that should have been a quick run to the store.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#92

Post by darklajid » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:46 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #69

darklajid wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument still sucks. Given a reasonable choice in the beginning ("The weather's cool, the kid strapped in, car is secured, will be right back") the kid would - what? Complain and cry after a while? It's a four year old boy with a tendency (if you read between the lines) to throw fits. Maybe all boys are like that.. If the mother (to stay with the original article) would've fallen unconscious or dead in the super…

I agree that the police reaction is sub-optimal, but there are reasons not to tie a child to a seat and lock them into a car and then leave them unsupervised, even if that is for a few minutes.

Reasons not to .. and reasons to to exactly that.

The decision is not yours, not ours. It's the parent's. Like everything else about the daily life of the kid. That argument contains no value. Of course there are reasons that one might not do that. Loop/Recur to line 1.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#93

Post by tptacek » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:46 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #86

tptacek wrote: post #70

I've flagged down a cop seeing a kid alone in a car, and would do it again. Should people who leave their toddlers in cars be prosecuted criminally? That's a complicated question. In almost every reasonable case the answer is probably "no". But this article doesn't really grapple with that question. Instead, it's a stew of rationalization and misdirection. It is literally an argument for leaving kids alone in cars .…

She wasn't "grappling", she was retelling what was probably the most emotionally trying experience of her entire life. Cut her some slack maybe?

She wrote an article that is in large part a defense of leaving toddlers alone in parked cars. That was her choice. It is reasonable to criticize an article on its own terms.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#94

Post by skwirl » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:46 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #70

I've flagged down a cop seeing a kid alone in a car, and would do it again. Should people who leave their toddlers in cars be prosecuted criminally? That's a complicated question. In almost every reasonable case the answer is probably "no". But this article doesn't really grapple with that question. Instead, it's a stew of rationalization and misdirection. It is literally an argument for leaving kids alone in cars .…

Perhaps we should flag down the cops for people who take their kids into the store instead:

http://www.azfamily.com/news/Child-run-over-killed-in-parkin...

http://kansasfirstnews.com/2014/06/03/one-year-old-dies-in-p...

http://www.19actionnews.com/story/25111445/ontario-oh-father...

http://www.fox19.com/story/25669631/man-tries-to-run-over-gi...

http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/oh-cuyahoga/3-year-o...

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/28/11443067-toddler-...

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/child-run-ov...

http://www.eptrail.com/ci_23754534/boulder-child-dies-after-...

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#95

Post by tptacek » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:47 PM UTC

skwirl wrote: post #94

tptacek wrote: post #70

I've flagged down a cop seeing a kid alone in a car, and would do it again. Should people who leave their toddlers in cars be prosecuted criminally? That's a complicated question. In almost every reasonable case the answer is probably "no". But this article doesn't really grapple with that question. Instead, it's a stew of rationalization and misdirection. It is literally an argument for leaving kids alone in cars .…

Perhaps we should flag down the cops for people who take their kids into the store instead: http://www.azfamily.com/news/Child-run-over-killed-in-parkin... http://kansasfirstnews.com/2014/06/03/one-year-old-dies-in-p... http://www.19actionnews.com/story/25111445/ontario-oh-father... http://www.fox19.com/story/25669631/man-tries-to-run-over-gi... http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/oh-cuyahoga/3-year-o... http://u…

These are all articles that are making my point for me. Leaving a four year old alone in a parked car in a parking lot is leaving a four year old alone in a parking lot.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#96

Post by scrumper » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:49 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #37

"He glanced up at me, his eyes alight with what I’d come to recognize as a sort of pre-tantrum agitation. “No, no, no, no, no! I don’t want to go in,” he repeated, and turned back to his game." That's where you failed. Clearly, there was a pattern of negligent parenting.

Are you being serious with that comment? I can't see how it's a joke. I strongly suspect you'll end up being downvoted into transparency, but in case not, where is the 'pattern'? Where, in fact, is even another example of negligence (conceding that some people may consider leaving the child in the car negligent, which I don't.)

EDIT: Ah, it happened while I was replying, probably for the best.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#97

Post by skwirl » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:49 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #95

skwirl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we should flag down the cops for people who take their kids into the store instead: http://www.azfamily.com/news/Child-run-over-killed-in-parkin... http://kansasfirstnews.com/2014/06/03/one-year-old-dies-in-p... http://www.19actionnews.com/story/25111445/ontario-oh-father... http://www.fox19.com/story/25669631/man-tries-to-run-over-gi... http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/oh-cuyahoga/3-year-o... http://u…

These are all articles that are making my point for me. Leaving a four year old alone in a parked car in a parking lot is leaving a four year old alone in a parking lot.

From the very first article:

"Sgt. Steve Martos said the child's mother was loading her purchases into her car when Jose darted between vehicles and into the driving lane. The driver did not see the child and ran him over."

If she had left the child in the car, this wouldn't have happened.

The point isn't that you should always leave your child in the car - the point is that our assessment of risk is terrible, and the risk of leaving a child in a car on a mild weather day has not been proven to be more risky than taking them into the store.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#98

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:49 PM UTC

mcphilip wrote: post #13

While it's tough to criticize the decision to leave a child in the car for a few minutes -- happened to me all the time as a child -- I'm forever scarred by seeing a dead child pulled out of a car in the office complex next to mine [1]. The dad was bashing his head against a tree trying to knock himself unconscious because he was so overcome with grief. Officers were trying to restrain him when his wife showed up and…

How much would it add to the cost of a car to put in a little solar panel and a fan or two that would bring in cooler air into the cabin on hot days? It would help avoid situations like these (or at least increase chances of survival) and keep the interior from being a scorching simulation of the surface of the sun. I think some models had this in the 90s, but it never caught on. Supposedly, if memory serves from an old issue of Motor Trend, just a couple small fans could drop the temperature almost 20 degrees on really hot days. So a 100 degree interior would be 80, which could mean the difference between life and death.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#99

Post by Pxtl » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:50 PM UTC

IanDrake wrote: post #44

Seriously, this is my number one reason for not having kids. For the younger crowd who may not understand, I was born in '77: - I rode in the back hatch (no seats) of my dad's corvette until I was 8, cops would wave to us. - At 6 I could ride my bike around pretty much anywhere I wanted, but wasn't allowed to cross rt6 (which I didn't, though no one checked). - Left in the car in parking lots for up to an hour. - Arr…

For the record, even today with our safety obsessed culture? Car accidents are still the leading preventable cause of death in children (non-preventable things like birth-defects and complications from childbirth itself are the only things that rank higher).

Cars are what kills kids, even now in our hyper-safe society. So it's worth re-examining that stuff.

Which means the thing with the Corvette? Probably wasn't a good idea in hindsight.

But yeah, the total lack of independence in today's kids is a different story. There is no epidemic of kiddy diddlers, of kids wandering off and getting lost and somehow dying. So the obsessive "have your kids with you at all times" thing is probably a modern over-reaction.

But the stuff about cars? Yeah, respect and fear traffic.

Re: The day I left my son in the car

#100

Post by imgabe » Wed, Jun 04, 2014, 8:50 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #90

imgabe wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, exactly, are the risks to a child in a locked car on a cool day for five minutes?

My thoughts immediately go to "that they will get hit by a car when they figure out how to get out".

The article states that the car had child locks, which were used, so the doors could only be opened from the outside. Furthermore, the kid specifically wanted to go on the trip in the first place so he could sit in the car and play with the iPad, which he was happily doing.

It's not impossible that in the space of five minutes the kid could get bored of the iPad, unbuckle the car seat, and figure out how to disable the child locks from inside the car. It's just very, very unlikely. If that's what had happened there would be a case for getting the police involved, but it didn't happen. If we're going start prosecuting people for every crime they could hypothetically commit at any given point, every single person would be in jail.