Readers — This story is headlined, “Attempted kidnapping caught on tape!” but…was it? I’m glad the girl is safe but does a slowing car really equal = “kidnap threat”?
Unless there’s more to this story than what we see here, it strikes me as bizarre that everyone is acting as if the girl somehow only barely slipped the clutches of a demon. – L
What a way to start a Monday Lenore.
Well played, well played indeed…
“Hey, kid. Do you know where the nearest gas station is?”
What I’d like to know is, why is it “ironic” that the camera was installed soon before this happened?
It’s Faux News, I’m not surprised. I always slow down when I see a kid…so I don’t freakin’ hit the kid. Most kids are dumb and I’ve had several see my car, and still ignore me and almost jump in front of it.
Wow, some people like to be the center of drama, don’t they? This is the actual definition of a complete non-event. In fact, on the wikipedia page for “making mountains out of molehills,” (if such a thing exists) this should be the first video example. There are a thousand reasons that the guy could have acted that way, including she “almost crashed,” she looked like someone he knew, he wanted to watch the bike because he liked it and thought about getting one for his kid …
“Wow, cool, that’s a really small motorbike!”
Nightmares? Wow. My little girl suffers from anxiety too. And here’s what I know: it’s all in her head.
Life is what happens around you and inside of you. Interpretation is a huge part of both joy and suffering.
And this is quite an interpretation.
*sigh*
Yup. A man, slowing his car down on a public rural road near a child is automatically a kidnap attempt. No way he’s asking for directions, saying hello, asking about her motorbike, etc etc etc.
This strikes me as another case of “Stranger Danger” gone awry.
What Donna said. This person wants to be the center of drama. Unless said person tried to grab the kid or pulled a gun on them or something, its not an attempted kidnapping.
In that case every time a man leers at me I should be able to say I was “Attempted raped”. Not quite folks, not quite.
If anything, the mom should have praised the girl for being alert. If the girl has been having anxiety and nightmares, I’m betting the parents were bordering on hysteria.
I assume the person slowed down to concern-troll that young girl for riding a motorbike.
Brooke, now THAT would be some delicious irony.
Right, I find it odd that the FUD industry picked this narrative. An equally valid narrative would have been: “Man notices girl riding motorbike alone without parental supervision.”
How about a driver slowing down to drive safely past a kid on a motorbike? He may be wondering if she is going to drive out in front of him and just wants to avoid an accident. When I took drivers ed, we were specifically told to slow down for kids that might swerve out into the road. Is this no longer a rule?
A rare glimpse of the car? Maybe I missed something, but I don’t see the car chasing her down the driveway as she races toward the house.
I’m so glad I’m a woman so if I stop near a kid or GASP… Speak to a kid, I won’t be a creep!
Here is another perfect example of the media making news stories. No description of the vehicle no physical altercation there was 4 people in front of a busy store on Friday night @ 6:30 and they call it attempted kidnapping.
http://wnep.com/2014/04/05/police-man-in-angry-birds-costume-attempts-child-abduction/
Wait, don’t we tell adults to slow down when they see kids playing in the street?
Wouldn’t it be natural for someone to drive cautiously after seeing a young girl on the street on a motorbike?
First off, misuse of the word “irony”…
Second, maybe the driver simply thought she was going to ride into the road.
Third, the mom’s comments about the kids having nightmares….? Wow, it’s on YOU to make them feel safe regardless of what you think happened.
This whole story is RIDICULOUS.
Yes, my first thought was that he slowed down in case this little girl on a dirt bike darted out into the road. Did that concept not occur at all to these people? Not even the reporters?
(Though they do get points for letting their daughter ride a dirt bike. That’s a lot more dangerous than a guy passing by in a car.)
She said she almost crashed. I have an idea — maybe the driver saw that she was driving really fast and somewhat recklessly and slowed down to make sure she was going to be okay?
Hey, maybe the guy was creeping on her. Who knows. But there are probably as many possibilities we could come up with for what he was doing, as people who comment here. Why jump to it being “really scary” and nightmare inducing? I’m pretty sure I had fantasies that I was being followed as a kid. I’m also pretty sure that I forgot about them almost as soon as I knew I was safely home. Of course, my mother didn’t call the cops or go on TV about it, so there’s that.
Hmmm. I frequently slow down when driving past children walking or biking near (or in) the road. I do this for their safety.
Clearly, I should be speeding up instead. I wouldn’t want to give them life-long nightmares of “the guy who slowed down”.
I’m curious, how did Natalie misuse “irony?” I get that the word gets misused a lot, but I think that’s just the word for someone getting the cops called on him for being a predator, because he was acting out of an overprotective attitude.
This is the result of raising kids to be constantly fearful of anything and anyone they don’t know coming anywhere near them, and listening to the mom, it is easy to see where it comes from.
We are raising a generation of children who will be totally incapable of managing their own lives, let alone helping to run the world someday.
“Wow, now that would be a cool present for my kid – or would it be too dangerous in our neighborhood, hmmm…”
“What the… – isn’t she too young to drive that?”
“Hmm, I know/knew a kid with a motorbike that almost died doing what she just did – slalomming all over the road right behind a hill – perhaps I should warn her”
“AAAAH a kid out of nowhere!!! OMG I almost hit her, OMG OMG OMG… Let’s stop here for a sec to calm down.”
If the driver hadn’t slowed to pass where she was riding, mom would have been out there screaming at him to pay attention.
The kid admitted to almost wiping out. I would have stopped to see if she had indeed wiped out or saved it.
Paranoid people and cameras, go figure.
And what does ‘slowing car = attempted kidnapping’ mean for school zones with lower speed limits? City full of creeps?
Once upon a time, a normal adult male (or female )could watch a child simply because he remembered the days when his children were young, or remember his own childhood. I tend to think of adults who watch children as tender-hearted. In fact, I think of adults who ARE NOT interested in children as somewhat “off” or self-absorbed.
Drivers are supposed to slow down when children are biking on streets. This was a NORMAL reaction for a cautious driver. Some children ride bikes (especially motorbikes that they *almost* crashed) like Billy from Family Circus and can be unpredictable and unsafe on narrow roads.
And aren’t these little pocket motorbikes illegal to ride on main roads? I have nothing against riding them on your own property but to make a big stink about a driver slowing down near your child on a main road when the kid is (probably) breaking the law is absurd.
I rode bikes all last week on vacation and most drivers slow down before they pass. This is called sharing the road. These stupid cameras take paranoia to a whole new level. Nightmares are having your kid squished by an 18-wheeler because they didn’t see her or she fell off in the road.
Get a grip.
one guy on their site commented that 800,000 kids go missing each year in the US.
How will the US survive without any new generations to take over?
@Warren
“one guy on their site commented that 800,000 kids go missing each year in the US.”
Because 799999 are found within two minutes?
Wow. Just… Wow. Admittedly, on camera it does look like the car started to pull over a bit, but even that is hard to confirm. The emphasis of this story is all in the wrong place. Regardless of whether the driver had any ill-intent, the girl felt uncertain/concerned and moved immediately back toward the house. Good for her! Isn’t that kind of quick thinking and trusting of our instincts what free range is all about?
(And I’m pretty sure that literally no reporter in the world actually knows what “ironic” means…)
On one hand, good for the girl that she has instincts and acts on them.
The rest of it is all crazy! I love the way the mom developed the whole scenario of what the guy was thinking when he stopped the car to look (probably to make sure the girl didn’t fall and find herself alone and injured). “Of course this is all speculation.” Yeah, but boy you sure are good at speculation! And I can’t help wondering whether that’s the real source of her daughter’s “instinct.”
But yeah, this is irresponsible reporting to the max. Maybe the girl’s instincts were right – I don’t know – but that tape certainly is not evidence of it. If anything, since the guy did not leave the road but drove off after seeing she was OK, I tend to view it as evidence that he meant no harm. But, the cops are looking for him. Scary world.
Oh, sorry, I see the use of “irony” being objected to in the video. Yep, that’s pretty dumb.
Thought exactly the same thing as you did when I first saw the video yesterday.
@Michelle H….as a conservative, I’ll admit that I am somewhat of a Fox News fan as many of the points made on that network I’m in agreement with. BUT you are absolutely correct in that it’s not surprising that something like this was featured on Fox News and that is one aspect of Fox News that I absolutely detest. It seems as if they’re part of the torch bearing lynch mob when it comes to anyone accused or even remotely suspected of being a pedophile.
Good examples being the reports there that said the person coming into your home to interview you for the census could be a convicted pedophile. As if the person is going to grab your son or daughter right in front of you and put them on their lap and fondle them while they’re interviewing you. Or the one about Barbie Dolls could potentially be used to create child pornography. Only a person with a very creative imagination could have come up with that. Finally, the one about teachers who befriend their students on Facebook could very well lead to sex between the teacher and student was absolutely ridiculous. There could be many good reasons why a teacher should not befriend their young students on facebook but that’s certainly not one of them!
Now many of the stories I just mentioned could have been featured on other sites as well. Wouldn’t surprise me as the American media in general seems obsessed with “child predator panic”. But Fox News is where I saw them.
I blame Alanis Morrisette, the reporter probably heard that song a thousand tomes in high school. I knew this day would come.
My kids have dirt bikes. I’d never let them ride in Uggs.
A few observations:
After watching this video, the auto-suggested next viewing was “viral photos that are actually fake.” No comment needed.
The family has motion activated cameras. Are we surprised that this girl’s head is full of “the world is out to get you” nonsense?
It isn’t ironic that the cameras were installed just last week. It is stupid that they were installed at all.
“I can’t believe he’d just stop like that.” Again, a rare glimpse into the head of a person afraid of the world.
What do the police plan to do when they find this person, using the ‘rare glimpse’ seen from the camera? Will they explain to taxpayers what crime they were investigating during that time?
The reporter says the family is grateful for the instincts that told her to get away. Wouldn’t this be appropriate only if it had turned out that there was a danger?
Also, Fox news doesn’t have a comments section for these videos.
As far as I’m concerned, they’re just terrifying this little girl all the more by making a big news story out of it and presuming things that may not be so. I would have told her she did the right thing by fleeing away as you never know what a person’s motives are. BUT I also would have emphasized to her that the person could have been absolutely harmless and maybe just wanted to ask her directions (The fact that it may be bad judgment for an adult to ask a young child directions is not the point here)or perhaps the person just wanted to comment on her driving the mini-bike. But it seems as if everybody is certain this child was about to be snatched and then violated unspeakably and they’re convincing her of just that! So how healthy is that for the little girl?
I wonder how many of those fears were instilled on her by her parents. Really, if a car slows down near a kid on the road, my first instinct is “thank god this driver has the common sense to slow down and drive safely”. Obvious example of worst first thinking.
“The family has motion activated cameras. Are we surprised that this girl’s head is full of “the world is out to get you†nonsense?”
The building the cameras are on looks like some kind of workshop, warehouse, or barn. I don’t think having motion activated security cameras on a business related building is a marker for paranoia. That said, they obviously ARE filling her with this craziness, as evidenced by the mom’s behavior and language.
You know, kids are a dime a dozen, at least in my neighborhood. Personally I would be slowing down to nick the bike…. 🙂 .
Here’s another thought. What if she was racing away from this guy (and he was following her carefully) because she crashed into his car or did some other kind of damage? In terms of objective probability, that would probably be more likely than what she is reporting.
SKL, in that case it strikes me as HIGHLY unlikely she would have told anybody about the incident.
But then if you are comparing probabilities, you might be right. The highly unlikely scenario of a kid damaging something, running off, and then telling everybody about it is perhaps more likely than someone who slows down for a minute, looks at a kid, and drives away, really having intended to kidnap the child.
When my kids are riding their bikes and scooters outside, I appreciate it when drivers slow down. It is insanity to call what happened a “kidnapping attempt.” We have become a nation of attention whores, is the best explanation I can think of. Anything for our 15 minutes.
If I saw a kid on a bike like that 1) I’d think it was cool and probably want to take a look and 2) I’d be nervous the kid was going to not be paying good attention and shoot out in front of me. In both cases, I’d be inclined to slow down quite a bit, until I was sure that they were safe.
My daughter just got a little pink kick scooter for her 4th birthday. She has gotten really fast and just flies down the sidewalk in front of the house, and it’s adorable. I watch her from the porch, because we do get a good amount of traffic on the street and I worry about cars, and sometimes drivers will slow down and wave at her or make a nice little comment to her. People like seeing happy little kids playing outside, and it makes her day when people stop to say hi to her. The other day a police officer driving by slowed down to wave at her and tell her, “Looking good!” I suppose I should have called the news about a kidnapping attempt…
@John, yeah, it’s weird and bizarre and unhealthy to have children believe that, if a stranger slows their car down, it’s probably because they want to kidnap them.
My oldest, who is 10, has complained to me a few times when I’ve asked him to do things like return a pot I’d borrowed from a friend (around the corner) or drop off our rent check (also around the corner) because “What if somebody kidnaps me?!” I’m just like, “Dude, nobody wants you that bad. You’re stuck with us.” 😛
I think it creates both a very unhealthy amount of fear and also a really inflated ego to believe that everybody you encounter probably wants to kidnap and/or rape you.
@Puzzled, the other reason it’s not “ironic” is that for all we know, slowing down when you see a teen on a motorized scooter is to slow way the heck down, and they don’t know this because they haven’t been recording it. They may record dozens of “attempted kidnappings” as people attempt not to run over their child. Until people wise up and don’t even bother to slow down when they pass the house, lest the police come after them, in which case their kid might actually be in some real danger.
We had a case in SE Michigan the other day where the police were looking for a man who talked to a teenager in a parking lot. That was apparently it. A teen, around 7 a.m., was walking to the bus stop. A man approached her in his car and asked her if she wanted a ride. She said no. He drove away. The authorities are investigating, because he obviously poses a serious danger to the entire community. Shaking my head.
After watching the footage I noticed that the girl is coming from the right side of the screen and the “man in question” from the left. It is almost completely likely that the man slowed down to avoid the girl as she was on the driveway and would have pulled out in front of him.
If I had been the driver I would have slowed down – because I don’t trust kids’ judgement to obey the rules of the road.
Wouldn’t it be hilarious if it turned out that the car belonged to an off duty deputy who slowed down while thinking about giving the little snowflake a ticket for riding on a public road without a license?
Now that I think about it, I want that to be the case.
“It’s all speculation of course…”
Truer words were never spoken.
On the other hand, what is that mom going allowing that girl to ride dressed like that?! Don’t tell me that I am not being free range. Were not talking about a bicycle here. Those 100cc dirt bikes will easily hit 50 mph with a light rider. I don’t ride my motorcycle without proper protection (helmet, jacket, gloves, eye-protection, etc.), and my commute doesn’t get above 40 mph.
The girl even admitted she almost crashed. Road rash on gravel at 40 mph is way more dangerous than some car that is slowing down for some unknown reason. Lettering her ride unsupervised is free range. Letting her ride in long sleeve t-shirt and a helmet without goggles is just reckless.
I applaud that girl for trusting her instincts (big believer there) but, wow, drama!
Paula, you may be wrong. We met a woman last year who admired my baby and said something like, “oh I could just steal her!” My mom said she knew she was joking but that it was still scary. I can only imagine what she’d do if you were driving and slowed down near her or looked at her.
Pentamom, she had to tell her mom something happened because her mom says she saw the guy slow down and look to see where her kid went. So the kid had to give some sort of explanation.
When I was a kid, the only reason anyone older ever followed me home was to report to my parents what mischief I’d been up to….
Might have been a slow news day. A bit like the South Park spoof of the news story about Brittany Spears urinating on a beetle.
I’m stunned by what I did not see…some kind of news. a minute and a half of my life I will never get back
SKL I was assuming the mom was talking about the camera video not that she actually saw it, but you might be right.
Another scenario: when I was a kid and we saw someone driving along like that, and slowing down, my mom always said, “He’s probably looking for the right house.” The assumption was that the person was trying to find an address and wasn’t sure which one it was. TO this day, that’ what I think when I see someone doing that, and believe it or not, I’ve actually engaged in that terrifying behavior myself.
@J
Get off your high horse.
She was riding circles in her driveway. Granted her drive may be bigger than yours, it is a lot like mine.
It is about common sense, and not absolutes. There is no need to get into full gear to just lap the driveway or yard. Now if you are in comp. or out on trails then yes get into full gear.
Let’s remember, personal protective gear is just that, personal.
Example, I find that I need some kindling for the fire. I grab the axe and make some. With no thought of safety gear. Now when I am splitting a lot, then the gloves and steel toe boots, and jeans go on. Do I tie of a ladder every time I am on one……no. Do I tie off the ladder when it is needed….absolutely.
Not everytime calls for full protective gear.
@pentamom
‘Another scenario: when I was a kid and we saw someone driving along like that, and slowing down, my mom always said, “He’s probably looking for the right house.‒
That brought back a scary memory. 10-15 years ago I was driving through an unfamiliar neighborhood, looking for a cross-street to find my destination.
The neighborhood was very, very hilly, with winding roads and semi-wooded. So you couldn’t see ahead very far, and I was going very, very slowly.
Luckily.
I had just reached the crest of a hill when, out of the corner of my eye, something in the road right in front of me caught my attention and I slammed on the brakes.
It was a little boy, no more than 3 years old, riding happily in a kiddie-car. Nobody else in sight.
I tapped the horn and a man (presumably the father) came running out of a house, his face horror-stricken, swooped up the boy and the kiddie-car without stopping to talk, and ran back inside.
Five minutes later it hit me and I started shaking at what had ALMOST happened.
I couldn’t have been going more than 5 MPH. If I was going 10 MPH (still well under the posted limit, which was 25, I think), I don’t think I could have stopped in time. Nothing was visible over the crest of the hill.
Perhaps the guy was going to reprimand the girl for not wearing the proper riding gear?
@ Warren
It’s not a high horse, it’s a BMW.
And yes, I am a stickler for PPE. I work as a forensic engineer. I large part of my job is accident reconstruction (aircraft, motor vehicle, motorcycle, industrial/agricultural. etc) for insurance claims and litigation. I live, eat, breath, and sleep, broken parts and severed limbs.
Do you have any idea how many times I have heard the story:
“normally I wear my PPE, but this time I was just cutting one piece/using the equipment for 30 seconds/going 100 feet/etc”
Where the victim was trying to justify why they were not wearing their PPE or did a proper log-out-tag-out that time and that is the moment they severed a hand/tore off an arm/arced 100,000 voltes through themselves/etc.
It’s incremental steps that people learn bad behavior. First you don’t make the kid suit up when riding around the driveway, then the kid doesn’t suit up because he/she’s only going down the block to fill up the tank – c’mon, it’s like 500 feet away. Next thing you know, the habit of not suiting up has set in. Do it right, every time, or don’t do it at all.
I have worked on no less than three sport aircraft crashes in which the pilot did not do a proper preflight check because “they were only going up for 15 min to warm up the aircraft” and ran out of fuel. Do it right, every time, or don’t do it at all.
I’ll let my kid shoot my guns, but eye and ear protection every time. I’ll let my kid split wood, but boots, long pants, and eye protection every time. I’ll let my kid work the deep fryer, apron and gloves every time. I’ll let my kid ride, when he’s old enough, helmet and armor every time. Do it right, every time, or don’t do it at all.
@J I would say your view is distorted though because you see so many of the ones that turned out bad. You don’t see the millions of people that do things without the “proper” safety precautions and never get into an accident.
An apron and gloves to use a deep frier never would have even crossed my mind… they are not even used in professional settings around here.
“Anna Sutherland â€@annams59 · 24 min.
Today’s post on overprotective parents is pure @FreeRangeKids-bait”
LOL! Speaking of kidnapping attempts 😀
AS someone who rides a scooter and has had an accident, I kind of agree with J on the PPE stuff. I was only going 27-30 MPH when I hit the ground on the scooter but my knee is still messed up for life. Though it would have been worse if I hadn’t had on gloves and my helmet.
I also was in a biking accident as a kid. I broke my arm in that incident but likely would have had worse if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet even with me going barely 10 MPH.
People need to wear safety gear all the time on bikes and scooters and mini bikes. Accidents happen in a split second and if you aren’t wearing the right gear well…
It looks to me like she came from the other direction than the way the car came from.
She came from the right but the car came from the left.
She’s driving like a bat out of hell and almost wipes out when she gets to the driveway.
Was she in the street coming head-on towards him before veering into the driveway?
My husband never had any sort of accident and yet he has a permanently messed up knee.
I’ve got a permanent injury from a dog bite, but I wouldn’t recommend kids wear a k-9 suit whenever they are interacting with a dog.
Anyway, the t-shirt was just for the camera. It looks like in the video of actual riding, she was wearing more, though it’s hard to tell if it was protective gear or not.
@Amanda Matthews
You are probably right, but I am not backing down. I did my graduate work in biomedical engineering, developing implants and prothesis for the DOD/DARPA to be used on combat wounded soldiers. A lot of our work was tested state side on accident victims who exhibit a lot of the same types of extremity trauma. Thats how I fell into failure analysis and accident reconstruction.
So I have seen with my own two eyes how a crash into chain link fence with a motorcycle at 30 mph can turn a bare arm into shredded meat. It’s like slamming into a cheese grater. Accidents like these turn very bad very quickly. You get lucky 99 times, you get hurt the 100th time and it’s not a boo-boo. It’s four or five surgeries and six months of therapy learning how to wipe yourself with a stump.
As for gloves and an apron with a deep fryer. I’m not talking about the counter-top models. I mean the “burn down your house with a boiling oil fireball” 5 gallon, propane fueled models. Them are dangerous. i can’t tell you how many accidents my company has covered where some guy dropped a 20 lbs turkey into his deep fryer and had to get skin grafts from the splash back. I’m not calling for a ban on deep fryers. Just go to the hardware store and put on a pair of welding gloves before you lower Mr. Gobbler into 400 degree oil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QMuLU7oi14
@ LadyTL
Thank you for backing me up. Sorry to hear about your knee.
“As for gloves and an apron with a deep fryer. I’m not talking about the counter-top models. I mean the “burn down your house with a boiling oil fireball†5 gallon, propane fueled models.”
As I said, gloves and aprons aren’t even used in professional settings around here. So commercial, 40 gallon deep dryers, usually with multiple in the building.
If someone brings their own gloves and apron they’d probably be told to take it off as it isn’t part of the uniform.
There seem to be an awful lot of these “near misses” in relation to the number of actual stranger abductions. . . . Just sayin’ 😉
If the girl got a bad vibe from the situation, then kudos to her for getting herself out of it. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s highly unlikely the driver had any ill intent. There’s certainly nothing newsworthy about the event. And I hope the kid isn’t afraid to play or ride her dirt bike out there now.
“You don’t see the millions of people that do things without the “proper†safety precautions and never get into an accident.”
Under that theory, we are all okay never wearing seat belts or using car seats. After all millions of people a day, in the US alone, ride in cars without getting into an accident. Why should any of us ever insist on safety gear?
I don’t ride a motorcycle, so I’m not really into the safety gear accident. But it is true that if you spend a lot of your time dealing with the worst case results, it’s likely to color your views on risks. I think that’s just human nature.
The other day I saw an article by a pediatric gastroenterologist who believes that nobody should ever potty train or take their kid out of diapers before age 3 (or was it 4?) – a tot should never ever “hold it” even for the time it takes to get to the bathroom. Why? Because *in his practice*, he observes a correlation between tot potty training and constipation. Of course he isn’t seeing all the kids who were trained with no problems (I mean, what % of kids go to a gastroenterologist?). So I take his article with a huge grain of salt, but I see other moms linking it and using it as advice. A little disturbing to think taking a kid to the toilet could be considered harmful, just based on that small part of the elephant.
Hmm, how “argument” in my last post turned into “accident” is beyond me….
@SKL: Must’ve been an argument 😉
yeah my first real job was at a movie theater at 18. I was tasked with dealing a lot with the popcorn machine. Most of us were. To clean it involved hot boiling water a lot of it. I ended up getting a third degree burn on my hand that had a huge blister that came up and I had to get on antibiotics in case of blood infection. The scar lasted for a good 6-7 years.
Yeah, it did not build character. It sucked. Nothing wrong with safety. Same with when I rode a scooter as a kid and I was wearing shorts or a dress. I fell and scraped up my knee really really badly. Scar took almost 10 years to go away. Would not have blamed my mom for making me wear jeans when I scootered. That scar marred my gorgeous legs into my teenage years. Again, did not really build character.
I don’t have a prob with safety gear.
Speaking of scars my poor son has a horribly deep red raised one on his knee.Now for boys scars can be cool and all. It was so deep he probably could have benefitted from stitches but we just dealt with it ourselves.
Happened because my husband ignored my requests to put down safety mulch under our swingset. That actually caused two other little girls that came over to play to get scarred too. After my son got hurt he finally put the mulch down. Sometimes taking precautions makes sense. My son will have to live with that scar for no knowing how long. Its been almost two years and it is still blatantly there. 🙁
“Under that theory, we are all okay never wearing seat belts or using car seats. After all millions of people a day, in the US alone, ride in cars without getting into an accident. Why should any of us ever insist on safety gear?”
I don’t know about you, but I actually DO see car accidents quite often. Car accidents happen often enough around me, and a seatbelt is simple and non-intrusive enough that I’m willing to take the safety precaution of putting on a seatbelt most of the time.
Though to be honest I have been in two major car accidents myself, and both times I was not wearing a seatbelt. One of the times was because I was delivering newspapers, which required getting in and out of the car every couple of minutes. After the accident, I tried for about 10 minutes to wear a seatbelt while delivering papers, and determined that it was not going to work.
On the other hand I use to ride a scooter a lot and never once got into an accident. I use to work with deep friers and never injured myself on them; I have injured myself on my stove countless times, but am not going to advocate gloves and an apron for all stove usage.
I’m not saying no precautions should ever be taken. It’s all about deciding which precautions are worth it to you.
Well J,
You work for insurance companies doing accident reconstruction to assign blame. Jaded and overreacting, no differently than those that deal with kids that were molested. Seeing evil everywhere.
Do you get fully clothed in winter attire….coat, snowpants, boots, scarf, mitts, touque when you run out to the car to get something you forgot? Really, you could fall, get knocked out, and die from exposure.
Go back to being overly paranoid at work, and stop bringing work home. I have nothing against reasonable steps to stay protected, but there is going over board. For what this girl was doing, she was adequately protected.
Oh and by the way, I live with the laws, but I am against bike and motorcyle helmets being mandatory. PPE is just that, personal protective equipment. At work, different story, standards are set, and yet a lot of them are overboard. Been on enough health and safety committees to see that.
J,
It is all about risk assessment. Not living by someone else’s risk assessment.
For example, a couple of years ago my daughters softball league instituted a rule for cages on the batting helmets. My daughter hated them, because they interfered with her view. We fought the rule and one, it became a personal choice. I had one parent ask me if I wanted my girl to get hit with the ball. I told her no, but I do expect her to learn how to duck.
And J, I am sure you do not fully gear up everytime you do something.