Strollerderby : kids in cars

Nine-Year-Old Takes Car, Drives to Granny's

JeanneSager — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:25:00 GMT

A nine-year-old Japanese boy apparently decided to avoid over the river and through the woods on his trip to Grandma's house. He just hopped in the driver's seat.

The kid got caught after calls were made to police that an unmanned car was seen rolling down the street. The boy was too short to be seen from outside the car, although he apparently managed the pedals and steering just fine. He came to a stop at a convenience store when he couldn't find his grandmother's house, and police brought him home to his parents.

The boy told them he'd learned to drive by watching his dad and playing arcade games. When he saw the keys in the ignition of the family car, he decided to give it a go. His parents were warned not to leave him unattended in the future.

Since my daughter began climbing around in the car, jumping in the front seat while I unpack the groceries, I've been extra careful about removing the keys. Some parents won't even let their kids play in the driver's seat, but she loves to spin the wheel. Where do you draw the line?

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The First Look at Booster Seats Shows - Unlucky 13 Fail

JeanneSager — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:35:00 GMT

That's it. I'm putting my daughter in a bubble. No, really. I bought a gas guzzler because I wanted the most steel I could put between her and everyone else on the road. I kept that little booty facing backward for as long as the law allowed. I went through one of those car seat inspections to make sure I got it right.

I waited until she was exactly 38 inches (by the pediatrician's measurements, not my writer's math) before putting her in a booster seat. And now this: the first ever review of child's booster seats finds a list of dangers lurking in our backseats. Excuse me, did that say FIRST EVER?

What has the Institute for Highway Safety been doing since, oh, I don't know . . . I was a little kid? Because I had one of those protective mothers (and you wonder where I get it from?) who bought a booster seat for her kid decades before they became a mandate in all but 12 states. These days, 21 states require kids be in a booster seat up until age 6. Another 17 (plus DC) require them until kids are 8. That's a lot of booster seat use. And yet this month the Institute issued its first report on booster seats, put together with the cooperation of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

I guess we could say better late than never. And they did come up with a list of winners - 10 in all (and my daughter's is on there, phewww) - and a list of losers (the unlucky number 13). Here's a look at them all. Let's just hope it doesn't take this long for the next go-round.

Image: Amazon - Graco's TurboBooster, one of the winners

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Judgment Day: What One Mom Lives With Every Day

Karen Murphy — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 12:34:00 GMT

Mike wrote a few months ago here about his take on parents leaving their kids in hot cars accidentally, and it really made me see things differently. After all, I'm the mom who forgot to buckle up her son while driving home from taking his jaundiced dehydrated 2-day old baby sister to the doctor, so I know that sometimes we forget things.

Trouble is, sometimes we forget things and there are tragic, awful consequences. Which we can then never forget. Like what Raelyn Balfour lives with every day: she accidentally killed her son Bryce.

Thinking, being SURE, that she dropped 9-month old Bryce off at day care that day, Raelyn ended up leaving him accidentally in her car all day. You know what happened. And as she said goodbye to him in the hospital, held him one last time, Raelyn promised her son that his death wasn't without meaning, that every day she would tell his story, no matter the reaction of those hearing it, in the hopes that in doing so another life could be saved.

Raelyn Balfour may be the most courageous person I have ever heard of. She made a horrible, terrible mistake, one that she pays for every second of the day, for the rest of her life, and she is not afraid to tell her story over and over and over. That's courage.

And I find it incredibly uplifting.

Photo: images.parenthood.com

Forgetting Kids In Hot Cars

Kelly Mills — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 15:24:00 GMT

Yesterday I mocked an infant alarm system designed to keep people from forgetting their kids in the car. I figured, "How often do responsible parents do that?" Well, elmomma23 pointed us toward an article on this, and apparently, about three dozen kids die in overheated cars annually. Ugh. I really sat up when I read, "'The biggest danger is that people think they wouldn't do it,' said Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Cars, a Kansas advocacy organization that tracks non-traffic-related child auto deaths." See, my motto as a parent is "Never say never." In other words, I truly hope I ain't next.

So check it out, and notice how it says that sleep deprivation can be a factor in memory loss. In fact, according to a sleep researcher, "Going 24 hours without sleep or sleeping only four to five hours a night for a week is equivalent -- in terms of impairing your performance -- to having a blood alcohol level of 0.1." Sigh. Apparently I'm at least buzzed all the time. Now I'm going to go give my kid a big hug.

Oh Crud, Now Where Did I Leave That Baby?

Kelly Mills — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 13:56:00 GMT

Maybe you get hit with that sinking feeling you forgot something. Car keys: check. Sunglasses: check. Wallet: check. Baby...Uh oh. Never fear. Now you can get your hands on the Child Minder System, which sounds a keychain alarm every time you move more than ten feet away from your kid's car seat. It attaches to the little buckle on the child restraint system, so you don't end up leaving Junior in the car for hours while you play Bingo or something. You know, I'm sure it happens ALL THE TIME.

I'm scoffing a little here, but maybe there's some good responsible citizens out there who have had this problem. There's certainly a lot of schmucks that have. Now, if you forget your keys and your baby in the car...well, we can't help you there.

Cars and Kids=Trouble

Kelly Mills — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 18:26:00 GMT

The Automotive Coalition on Traffic Safety surveyed 900 parents, and learned that most parents underestimate the risks of cars to kids. For example, two-thirds thought it was unlikely a child would die from heat after being left alone in a car, when it turns out that kids' bodies heat up faster than adults, and so far this year at least five kids have died from heat stroke after being left unattended in a ride. The president of the coalition says, "Kids are run over in driveways and parking lots, suffer from hypothermia, they put a car in motion while playing, are strangled by power windows, or trapped in the trunks of sedans."Yeesh. Now even my crappy old mom car is looking like a death trap to me.

Obviously we need to do the basics: buckle up, hold hands, and exercise caution around streets and driveways. But this issue of leaving kids in cars is a temptation I'm sure many parents have felt. You know, kids are asleep or tired, the hassle of dragging children out of the carseats seems like such a pain and you are only going to run in for a second... Of course the consequences if something goes wrong are so awful, it really isn't worth it. When I was small, my sister and I were alone in a car and accidentally kicked it into neutral, and slowly began rolling down a slope. I leaped out of the car and tried to push it back up the hill (that's kid logic for you.) Luckily we were both fine, but the experience stayed with me. Now my kid is forced exit the vehicle and come everywhere with me, which is sometimes a real drag, but ultimately gives me way more peace of mind.