- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.ca
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- fuckcars@lemmy.ca
- fuckcars@lemmy.world
Not the first time this has happened either, here’s another similar case in Atlanta: https://abcnews.go.com/US/mother-boy-killed-hit-run-driver-probation-community/story?id=14158040
I dunno does your 7 year old jump out into oncoming traffic often? Cuz this kid did.
I think you’re trying to make a pretty s***** implication. Remember that this is a situation where the parents got charged with a crime for being reckless. Are you insinuating that the parents knew that their 7 year old child was likely to jump out into the street, and that perhaps the child had a history of doing so, and that the parents nevertheless allowed the child to walk home from the store? It sounds like that’s what you’re claiming.
@fodor @pixxelkick Contrast this with the treatment of rich white parents who buy their teenage children cars and allow them to continue using them unsupervised despite evidence that they routinely speed, drive distracted, and otherwise violate traffic laws when their teenager kills someone with their weapon.
A history isn’t needed, the child is seven years old, that’s all that’s needed.
Seven year olds are not nearly old enough to wander around 4 lane busy roads unsupervised, full stop.
That’s blatant negligence, there’s no getting past that.
That’s why 4 lane roads should be banned
Exactly. Why are there 4 lane roads in pedestrian areas, especially so close to a school? Where is the pedestrian infrastructure so that this child could have walked safely?
I despise how people want to shift the blame to a child just walking to school and the parents who weren’t even involved instead of the driver of a multi-ton death machine for not paying attention to pedestrians.
I agree, well, at least car lanes.
Turn 2 of the lanes into bike lanes.
Tram?
He was with his older brother, who is 10.
And if a 10 year old is perfectly capable of walking to school (literally according to everyone), a 7 year old with their 10 year old brother should also be perfectly fine walking TWO BLOCKS without the worry of being killed by a driver.
And 4 lane roads should be banned in urban centers. It’s fucking ridiculous to have a goddamn highway in an area where children and families should be able to walk home safely!
…No…
A 10 year old is not old enough to be responsible for a 7 year old, full stop. Most experts consider around 12 to 13 the minimum maturity for a child to be capable of being responsible for another child. 10 is definitely too young to be looking after another kid, wtf are you talking about.
I really hope you don’t have kids…
The experts say:
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (UK)
Ottawa Safety Council (Walk Alone Program, Canada)
American Academy of Pediatrics (USA)
They also put this poster together:
Every country has the same general consensus.
Kids and grandkids. And I was also once a kid with a younger sibling. And I see young kids walking to our local school on a regular bases.
If someone is still walking their teenager to school, they should probably stop 😮
Kids shouldn’t be raising kids.
Fuck cars, but 10 year old children shouldn’t have to be responsible for other children. They shouldn’t have any responsibilities yet.
I agree that kids shouldn’t be raising kids.
But these kids were simply walking a few hundred meters from the store to their home in broad daylight, while on the phone with their father, and were old enough to be doing so.
This would be considered completely normal in any other country.
It’s also important to note that I don’t believe any city, state, or country has minimum age laws for kids to walk. Staying at home alone or in a car? Yes, but not walking (or playing outdoors, or riding a bike, etc.)
So for the courts to charge the parents with child neglect and manslaughter seems wildly unbalanced.
A 10 year old is not old enough to be responsible for a 7 year old, so no, they weren’t old enough to walk home together. The 10 year old walking by themselves would have been safe, adding a 7 year old made the situation unsafe.
The dirty secret of the capitalist nuclear family is kids are always raising kids while the parents are busy at work or doing housework or struggling to recover from work. It’s not really the parents’ fault.
Reread what you wrote.
A 10 year old being able to walk home is not the same as that 10 year old also being responsible for a 7 year old
This isn’t rocket science.
Of course, there are always special circumstances when a child should have constant adult supervision (developmental delays, medical needs, etc.), but this wasn’t the issue here.
But according to experts, if younger children (under 8) should be with an adult or older sibling, and if 10 is old enough to walk alone, then 7 with a 10 year old is fine to walk 300m home. It would make both kids safer and more visible, since they are in a “group”.
If the kid was 4 or 5, then that would be different, for sure.
But why is blame being shifted onto the victim here?
There is no reason whatsoever that an older kid and their sibling shouldn’t be able to safely walk two blocks to their home.
This wouldn’t even be a topic for discussion anywhere outside of the united states or for anyone who was a kid before the 90s.
Incorrect.
Being old enough to walk home alone is not equivalent to being old enough to escort a younger sibling on top of that.
That’s literally additional responsibility.
You are effectively going:
“If 4 is greater than 3, and 4 is greater than 2, then surely 4 is greater than 3 + 2 as well!”
You are stacking multiple simultaneously responsibilities together.
A 10 year old as just barely maybe responsible enough to walk alone, and even then I would caveat that that’s based off them walking home alone in a safe environment
There’s a huge difference between a 10 year old walking home alone on a quiet street vs busy road.
But even setting that aside…
And then if you think a 10 year old is old enough to watch over a younger sibling, barely…
Both responsibilities at the same time are now more than that
Responsibilities compound, this isn’t complicated.
I would say 12~13 bare minimum to simultaneously watch over a 7 year old, alone, while also being in a higher danger area (like a 4 lane busy road)
For a safer scenario, like a quiet street or at the park, I’d say 11 to 12
For a very safe scenario, like watching them at home or in your own yard, then yes, 10 is fine.
You can’t just take each variable individually and say it’s fine, and then assert the same is true when you compound them all together.
God, I really hope you don’t have kids if you seriously think it’s cool to let a unsupervised 10 year old watch a 7 year old near a busy road, that’s exceptionally negligent, lol
@pixxelkick @Showroom7561 a 10 year old should be able to be safe outdoors, c’mon…
See, for Instance, the Nederlands, kids go to school by bicycle.
https://youtu.be/2fU3nhGrp3Q
I’ve seen toddlers in public transport (yes with an adult, but one for 10 kids or so), in Switzerland.
“Should be able to” doesn’t mean jack shit in terms of fault here.
The reality is, it wasnt safe. Yeah, it would be nice if it was safe.
But it wasn’t safe, and any parent that isn’t a negligent idiot would know it’s not safe, this is literally the Fuck Cars lemmy, so you should know how dangerous a 4 lane road is.
And thus you should know not to let your kids out unsupervised near one.
I don’t give a shit how safe we would like ot to be, the functional inference of "was this mother negligent or not* isn’t based off how safe we’d like it to be
It’s functional of how safe/dangerous it actually is at the time.
It’s like if a mother let’s her kids play unsupervised in a fucking hurricane and you try and argue “well there shouldn’t be a hurricane”
No one should give a shit, there very clearly, obviously, and demonstratebly was a fucking hurricane, so don’t fucking let your kids play in it. Don’t be a fucking dumb ass, supervise your children in potentially dangerous situations.
If this was some like a quiet neighborhood 1.5 lane sleepy street I’d be on the mom’s side more here.
But it was a fucking 4 lane busy road
Yes, that should be obviously negligent behavior to literally anyone with 2 braincells to rub together.
Fuck cars, but also fuck negligent parents that let their kids play near fucking traffic.
They are if you teach them well