Parents as Felons

@shavixmir said
I certainly disagree with it.

Are you supposed to keep kids prisoner or something?

I did some homework on this because it's a problem in my neighborhood.

In many areas, a combination of bad drivers driving big cars and urban planning has made it unsafe for kids to walk around outside.

The biggest problem - the cars. They are big and tall and the drivers can see the road and other cars but cannot see the pedestrians. 50% higher risk, works out to around 3,000 people each year. A strike higher in the torso and head is more likely fatal than a strike in the legs.They drive too fast and when they get old we don't make them retake drivers tests (freedom and all).

Fixing this requires government acknowledgement that big cars kill more people than small cars and should be taxed accordinglyy. Then kids can go outside again.

@wildgrass said
I did some homework on this because it's a problem in my neighborhood.

In many areas, a combination of bad drivers driving big cars and urban planning has made it unsafe for kids to walk around outside.

The biggest problem - the cars. They are big and tall and the drivers can see the road and other cars but cannot see the pedestrians. 50% higher risk, works out to aro ...[text shortened]... s kill more people than small cars and should be taxed accordinglyy. Then kids can go outside again.

Will taxing large cars make them less deadly?

In most Dutch neighbourhoods, they’ve lowered the speed limit to 30 km/hour.

Seemingly that’s the speed which saves lives if one is hit by a car.

@no1marauder said
There's a story concerning this incident in the New York Times, but since it has a paywall, I'll just repeat the version that I got in my Reason roundup from the Libertarian magazine daily newsletter:

"A North Carolina couple, Jessica Ivey Jenkins and Sameule Jenkins, let their 7- and 10-year-old sons walk 10 minutes to the store by themselves, with Sameule stay ...[text shortened]... streets without their parents all the time. When did it become "child abuse" to allow them to do so?

When I was 5 or so DEEP into the 20th century, ALL of the kids wandered around freely, cars driving by, no bid deal and in fact I had made a kind of skateboard out of a crudely built piece of wood and a couple of roller skates, pretty advanced for a 5 or 6 yo, anyway I took it about three blocks from home and saw cars driving by and one stops at a red light and I hitch a ride on the back bumper of said car riding it for a couple of blocks like that and I don't think anyone even noticed.
Now there would be ten 911 calls KID IS GOING TO KILL HIMSELF🙂
We ALL wandered around with no bounds like one time I found a couple of firecrackers and had an old metal WW2 fighter jet toy I lit the crackers inside that and watched it fly apart, nobody comes screaming out the house.

@no1marauder said
There's a story concerning this incident in the New York Times, but since it has a paywall, I'll just repeat the version that I got in my Reason roundup from the Libertarian magazine daily newsletter:

"A North Carolina couple, Jessica Ivey Jenkins and Sameule Jenkins, let their 7- and 10-year-old sons walk 10 minutes to the store by themselves, with Sameule stay ...[text shortened]... streets without their parents all the time. When did it become "child abuse" to allow them to do so?

A clear case of irresponsible parenting, plus blame shifting subsequent to the accident. Parents will know their local environment and should take the required precaution. Every environment and also every child is different. City kids, suburban kids, country kids, forest kids, beach kids, all grow up differently. Some gifted kids are automatically street smart and need little supervision. Some need lots of care and control. This nonsense about cars to big or too fast are just lame excuses for your failure as a parent. But in societies like the US, nobody accepts responsibility, and nobody takes blame but try as best as they can to pass it on.

@Rajk999 said
A clear case of irresponsible parenting, plus blame shifting subsequent to the accident. Parents will know their local environment and should take the required precaution. Every environment and also every child is different. City kids, suburban kids, country kids, forest kids, beach kids, all grow up differently. Some gifted kids are automatically street smart and need li ...[text shortened]... US, nobody accepts responsibility, and nobody takes blame but try as best as they can to pass it on.

I survived my childhood where ALL the kids in my neighborhood wandered around freely, I even made a skateboard when I was about 7 with an old board and roller skates banged it together with nails and a hammer in a shed and then went out three or four blocks from home and hitched a ride on the back bumper of a car at a red light and guess what, NOBODY called the cops or yelled, got off at the next light and went home. Same with all the other kids. so if I had been killed with that admittedly dumb stunt my parents would have gone to jail when all the rest of the kids had the same freedom?

@sonhouse said
I survived my childhood where ALL the kids in my neighborhood wandered around freely, I even made a skateboard when I was about 7 with an old board and roller skates banged it together with nails and a hammer in a shed and then went out three or four blocks from home and hitched a ride on the back bumper of a car at a red light and guess what, NOBODY called the cops or yelle ...[text shortened]... ly dumb stunt my parents would have gone to jail when all the rest of the kids had the same freedom?

I know. I think you already said that. However, its not about you or me. All environments are different, and all kids are different. Parents need to be aware of where their kids are in terms of development and their ability to walk around unsupervised.

@Rajk999 said
I know. I think you already said that. However, its not about you or me. All environments are different, and all kids are different. Parents need to be aware of where their kids are in terms of development and their ability to walk around unsupervised.

So your idea is the rules change year by year, one year kids roam free like they had been for thousands of generations but now in the cities it is dangerous and kids need to have helicopter parents.

@sonhouse said
So your idea is the rules change year by year, one year kids roam free like they had been for thousands of generations but now in the cities it is dangerous and kids need to have helicopter parents.

There is no such thing as a constant in this life. You should have figured that out already. Parents need to be careful, and aware of their environment, and make wise decisions regarding the safety of their kids.

@Rajk999 said
There is no such thing as a constant in this life. You should have figured that out already. Parents need to be careful, and aware of their environment, and make wise decisions regarding the safety of their kids.

In other words, be helicopter parents. Kids learn when they screw up, and there are very few kids killed by just running into cars, the stats say 188 such pedestrian fatalities occurred. Too many for sure but you can't change the entire ethic of a society because some kids get killed.
What about the kids being killed by Israeli soldiers when they are getting food at a bench set out for that? I would think you would be a lot more pissed at that.
but then again, you are totally anti Palestinians so the Israelis can do all the child killing they want.

@sonhouse said
In other words, be helicopter parents.

I have no clue what that means.

@Rajk999 said
I have no clue what that means.

Hovering over their kids like a helicopter. Pretty well known phrase anywhere on the planet.

@sonhouse said
Hovering over their kids like a helicopter. Pretty well known phrase anywhere on the planet.

This is a case where a 7 year old kid was killed on the road he was trying to cross. Clearly there was no hovering. So maybe there should have been a bit more of this helicopter parenting going on until the kid became a bit more aware.

@shavixmir said
Will taxing large cars make them less deadly?

In most Dutch neighbourhoods, they’ve lowered the speed limit to 30 km/hour.

Seemingly that’s the speed which saves lives if one is hit by a car.

The idea is to have fewer of the death mobiles on the road.

I also support speed limit changes although it seems people tend to speed if they feel safe. A better strategy is to narrow the driving lanes, which causes drivers to slow down on their own accord, and use the extra space to increase the buffers between cars and pedestrians.

@Rajk999 said
A clear case of irresponsible parenting, plus blame shifting subsequent to the accident. Parents will know their local environment and should take the required precaution. Every environment and also every child is different. City kids, suburban kids, country kids, forest kids, beach kids, all grow up differently. Some gifted kids are automatically street smart and need li ...[text shortened]... US, nobody accepts responsibility, and nobody takes blame but try as best as they can to pass it on.

Bad take. Government created the environment in which it is unsafe for kids to go outside. They should not punish parents for this.

@wildgrass said
Bad take. Government created the environment in which it is unsafe for kids to go outside. They should not punish parents for this.

You mean the parents knew the environment was unsafe ... Assessing the safety of the environment in which the child walks around is the responsibility of the parent. They screwed up.