"I'd better go, I've got the kids in the car"

personally , i have never seen anyone leaving his/her small baby into the car all alone like that!
Even if it is not about the car heating up, babies are not to be left alone like that . that is why they are ‘termed’ as ‘babies’ and we as ‘adults’ who should take care of them.

At some point over the last 25 years, we’ve become soft. I still remember as a kid of the 80’s it was not exactly uncommon for mum to leave us in the car whilst she would quickly run into the shops and pick something up, and back then we did not have a car with air conditioning.

Instead of this current “oh my god won’t someone please think of the children” levels of craziness which we now see, most of us humans used to be able to judge risk and danger.

In a way I’m also susceptible to this. I realised that my 7 year old daughter is the same age I was when I used to go riding my bike up Simpsons hill with a mate of the same age. The basic rule was be home before dinner time (which I managed to do most times), and don’t get into trouble. We had no mobile phones, no GPS trackers and no way to get in contact with our parents / vice versa, and yet that was considered normal. These days we’re questioning if we’d let our daughter walk 6 houses down to a friends place by herself.

As for the OP, unless you actually saw kids in the car in distress, honestly you know nothing. A vague comment over heard by someone who was not directing that comment to you. How do you know it was not his wife and kids? How do you know that his kids where not 17 and 19? How do you know that there was even kids involved and it wasn’t just an excuse to get out of there?

Finally, to put it bluntly, the moment you have kids is the moment you realise that you don’t actually know anything about kids. Until then, non-parents always feel that they know more about kids than parents do (another thing I myself was guilty of, I thought I knew all there was to know about kids until I had some of my own).

crackerpants said :

You overheard something, you didn’t act on it, so that’s the end of it really. Anything else is just wild speculation.

Sums it up fine, in fact he speculated on what he overheard and used it as bait for his community message

The car i drive to work doesn’t have AC, handsfree or bluetooth. Oh Please Gen Y, i beg you, #SendHelp at once

Monomyth said :

Should you come across the kids in the car first as opposed to the parent, call NRMA. Select the option for ‘child or animal trapped in the car’ and they will send someone out to get them out, free of charge, and you are not liable for damages sustained during the prison break.

That’s all well and good in theory. But it’d still take them precious minutes to get there. In the case of the video above, the kid had already passed out. If I came across that situation, I wouldn’t mess around making a phone call. It’d be window smashing time.

Should you come across the kids in the car first as opposed to the parent, call NRMA. Select the option for ‘child or animal trapped in the car’ and they will send someone out to get them out, free of charge, and you are not liable for damages sustained during the prison break.

Evil_Kitten said :

74Daizies said :

I have a real problem with leaving kids in the car.. even for just a minute. I have two children btw. I would never leave them in the car in the heat! Should I come across this at any point in the future I will be calling the Police and getting permission to smash a window. Kids die in minutes in cars. Might also add that I would do the same thing should I see an animal in a locked car on a hot day.

What about paying for petrol? I absolutely would. I would even argue that the whole process of wrangling them in and out of the car in the heat, for 30 secs of aircon time when you’re lining up to pay, would be hotter than leaving them for a couple of minutes lol.

Petrol bowsers are in the shade, so I guess it would be safe to leave a kid in the car briefly while you pay for petrol …

74Daizies said :

I have a real problem with leaving kids in the car.. even for just a minute. I have two children btw. I would never leave them in the car in the heat! Should I come across this at any point in the future I will be calling the Police and getting permission to smash a window. Kids die in minutes in cars. Might also add that I would do the same thing should I see an animal in a locked car on a hot day.

What about paying for petrol? I absolutely would. I would even argue that the whole process of wrangling them in and out of the car in the heat, for 30 secs of aircon time when you’re lining up to pay, would be hotter than leaving them for a couple of minutes lol.

Solidarity said :

He may have “had the kids in the car” and really needed to “drop them off at the pool”

Thanks for the giggle Solidarity, I haven’t heard that expression/euphemism for years.

To the OP, I don’t think you’re going to find anyone who agrees with leaving infants in a car on a hot day. I don’t think you’re going to find anyone who would argue that cars don’t get unbearably hot on a warm sunny day (although you might find a few who just ignore the phone while driving, thus reducing complicated A/C / window/volume/losing concentration situations).

You overheard something, you didn’t act on it, so that’s the end of it really. Anything else is just wild speculation.

Obviously, if you see a child (or pet) in a closed car on a hot day, take action, report it, get help, but again, I don’t think you’d find anyone here who would disagree with that.

As a parent, I think one of my greatest fears is inadvertently leaving my child/ren in a dangerous situation, because you can’t fix a problem you don’t know about. But that’s a different situation and a different conversation entirely.

Madam Cholet said :

Tenpoints said :

Giving benefit of the doubt is the easy way out though. Imagine if you tripped over in the street and couldn’t get up and everyone just moved around you? People die through the inaction of others.

Anyway, I’d argue that it’s not a socially acceptable thing to say. Given the conditions, it seemed irresponsible, although I am stuck for similar examples to solidify my point.

Yep, bad analogy, (but I bet that good for nothing father would indeed step over the person laying on the street).

Seems that your argument now is that it was socially unacceptable to say it (within earshot of you), and that given the conditions it ‘seemed’ irresponsible to ‘possibly’ have left the ‘tiny helpless’ kiddies locked in a rapidly heating metal box.

You forgot also that whilst he was away they could have been letting off the handbrake and rolling away or could even have got out of the car and be wandering around a carpark.

But my money is with the fact that they weren’t endangered at all.

Agreed, there are a few assumptions that need to be drawn to come to the conclusion that kids were in danger. I did save myself the hassle of “probably unnecessary” confrontation by keeping my mouth shut at the time. I can only assume that it was all good in the end.

The point of the whole topic was to gather a general consensus on the validity of my thought process.
What has been illustrated to me is that:
*There are a number of people who acknowledge and agree on the general issue of leaving kids in hot cars
*There a number of people who are of the opinion that I should not have bothered as there are too many unknowns.

Thus, on the latter point, it seems that in these situations the general consensus is to ignore such a comment and continue about one’s daily business. I guess I have nothing to worry about then! Thanks RA.