Five children, ranging in age from two to 13 years old, died in a horrific car accident on the way to a water park yesterday. They were riding in an SUV crammed with ten children total and two adults. There weren't enough seats for all 12 passengers. And it pains me to add that there were no car seats, either. Not even for the two-year-old.
The SUV rolled several times on its way down an encampment and nine of the children were thrown from the car. These kids piled into the car at the beginning of the day, looking forward to a day of fun. And they trusted the adults to get them to the water park safely. Those adults failed them -- tragically.
I can see how all this must have happened. Lord knows I traveled this way a time or two when I was a kid. You, too? I think seat belts and child seats and car safety in general was popularized sometime in the 1980s. Before that, it was practically anything goes. You'd see kids riding in the back of pickup trucks -- on the freeway. Maybe you used your seat belt, maybe you didn't. And with families carpooling it was sometimes practically a contest to see how many kids you could fit into a car. You were just being frugal and practical.
Not so anymore. We know better, now. I'm sure the adults in that SUV (a GMC Envoy) on the way to the water park thought nothing would go wrong. They were in a big, protective truck. It was convenient to take just one car to the water park. They probably had child seats, but pulled them out to make room for more kids. Who knows if anyone was using a seat belt. But obviously none of us can afford this kind of "convenience." Our children's lives are worth much, much more.
Have you ever attempted to drive with more kids in the car than you have seats?
Image via bsabarnowl/Flickr
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Comments 56
These adults were hopelessly stupid to allow that many kids in a car without the necessary number of seats. When I was growing up, and arrangement like this was ok for car rides no more than 30 seconds long. No matter what the adults' logic for allowing this was, it was stupid.
Fleur - I think you must be at least kind of young, then...when I was a kid, there were routinely all four of us kids in my father's sedan and my little brother and I got to alternate who "got to sit" ON the armrest in the middle of the FRONT bench seat. And I'm not quite 40 yet!
I wouldn't think of it today but, back then, that's how we got around. My brother was the first of the four of us to even have a car seat in the late 70's and, as my mother recalls, IT was bolted to the frame of her car but had no straps for HIM and, often times, she didn't put the seatbelt around it beause...she just didn't. It's scary to think of now!
@Bubbs -- yes, I am pretty young. This was during the early 90's. That was when people were just starting to become very concerned with automobile safety (start of the paranoid protector parents). When I first learned to drive, I was never allowed to have even one more person than the max number of seat belts, which makes sense. I can't believe that these adults thought that this arrangement was ok, since it sounds like the car ride was longer than 30 seconds.
It's called evolution....it used to be ok to drive around with your kids hanging out the windows, unrestrained, but after too many accidents occurred, we have learned that we needed more safety measures in place. This means that we should all realize that it is not ok to stuff people into your car just because it is more convenient to take one car. My sister constantly asks me to take her to my town beach with her family. I have a 7 passenger mini-van but with my family of four and her family of four that means someone is riding without a seatbelt, so the answer is always no and I always get ridiculed for being such a "worry-wart". I don't care though. I would rather she is pissy with me for a day or two than cave to her peer pressure and possibly kill someone.
This is so sad.
Like many, I remember piling into my family's station wagon with 10+plus kids. Oh, I remember laying flat in the back of a pickup that was driving on the freeway. There's no way I would even think of considering that, now. 8(