Stop this, before someone gets hurt

Fri Apr 26, 2013

Editor: I use this forum to bring to everyone’s attention a bad and worrying habit that seems to have become a norm here in St Vincent and the Grenadines.{{more}}

I am speaking about the way that parents allow their children to be standing on the car seats or between the driver and the seat or hanging out of the windows while they, the parents, are driving.

I see this as a very dangerous practice that needs to be stopped now before more children get hurt.

Let’s say, for argument sake, that the driver has to apply brakes suddenly. Would he/she be able to control the vehicle and ensure the safety of the standing child at the same time? When asked about this practice many parents say the child wants to stand there.

Over the years I have seen parents allow their children to control them. Well, I am asking parents to take back that control from their children. What bothers me most is that persons who you think should know better are some of the persons who allow these things to happen and also that these things happen in the presence of police officers. I am appealing to our motorists; please let us correct this practice now before we have to sa, “If I did know.”

Clifford E. Gould