Whenever I suggest that it should be up to the parents to decide if it makes sense to take a child out of the car while they run a brief errand, someone smugly reminds me of this or that tragic story of a child who died in a car. Almost always it is the story of a child forgotten there for hours, not simply waiting while mom gets the milk or dry cleaning. But people feel that this extremely rare, extremely well-publicized death nonetheless illustrates the dangers of something that is 99.99% safe.
(About 30-40 kids out of 20,000,000 American children age 5 and under die each year in cars, 80% of whom were forgotten there or got in unbeknownst to the parents and couldn’t get out. That leaves 10 or fewer kids who die in parked cars in unspecified circumstances, including, possibly, waiting out an errand.)
Today comes this unspeakably sad story of a boy killed while crossing the parking lot with his mom and sister. I can’t even imagine the sorrow. I hate writing about it.
I do so only to remind us all that there is no such thing as perfect safety. And since there isn’t, parents should be allowed to decide for themselves which very-safe-but-not-perfectly-safe errand-running option they wish to choose.
The San Jose Mercury News reports:
SAN JOSE — A 6-year-old boy who was holding his mother’s hand was hit and killed by a car Thursday night in the Oakridge Mall parking lot in South San Jose….
He and his mother were walking at 9:34 p.m. when they were hit by a gray 2015 Mercedes traveling at a “low speed,” according to police….
The driver stopped and cooperated with investigators. At this time, alcohol and drugs are not suspected, police said.
Now let’s take a look at California’s child-in-car laws: Under Kaitlyn’s Law, no child six or under can be left unsupervised in car AT ALL:
(1) Where there are conditions that present a significant risk to the child’s health or safety.
(2) When the vehicle’s engine is running or the vehicle’s keys are in the ignition, or both.
“Significant risk” to me means in a terribly dangerous neighborhood, or for a lengthy wait. But here’s how the law was explained by California Highway Patrol when it was unveiled (boldface mine):
“On a typical sunny day, the temperature inside a vehicle can reach a potentially deadly level within minutes,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “There is no excuse for leaving a child alone in a vehicle, not even for a few minutes.”
So “significant risk” is defined as “even for a few minutes.” No exceptions for parents who roll the windows down, or keep the AC on. A car without an adult in it is automatically considered a death trap.
I went to kidsandcars.org, the organization that has been so successful in reminding us that cars heat up fast — I thank them for this, truly — but also in obfuscating the difference between a long wait in the car and a short one. The organization’s map shows that over the course of 25 years in California there have been 54 heatstroke deaths of kids, or about two a year. That is an uncommon way to die. So is being struck by a car in the parking lot.
Since they are both uncommon, let us stop second-guessing — and worse, prosecuting — the parents who choose one infinitesimally small risk over the other.
The pernicious idea that we can make childhood absolutely risk-free if only we micromanage moms and dads and punish them for not acting as if their kids are in danger every second they’re unsupervised is making society vicious and parents frazzled.
Recall the Chicago-area mom who recently let her twin babies sleep in the car for 10 minutes with the windows rolled down while she signed her other kid up for school. She was so close by that she could see the car at all times. That mom is now wearing an electronic monitor, like a work-release felon, and facing charges.
The mom in San Jose was not doing anything wrong. And if she’d left her child in the car, as the Chicago mom did, that would not have been wrong either. Both choices are usually safe. Both are, once in a very long while, not safe.
Can we agree that, in the absence of true child neglect or abuse, parents should be allowed to go about their lives and try their best without getting arrested?
Lenore Skenazy is a keynote speaker, founder of the book and blog Free-Range Kids, and a contributor at Reason.com.
