Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Mother of the Year...

I stopped the next candidate for Mother of the Year today.

I stopped a car because the driver and passenger were not wearing their seatbelts. By the time I walked up to the driver, the youngster in the rear seat was out of his child seat. I'm sure he was not properly secured in the first place, but since I didn't actually see him improperly secured in the seat when the car was moving, I couldn't cite the driver.

When I insisted that the driver properly secure the child before she drove away, she gave me shit for it. She lit into me for writing her the seatbelt ticket. She started in about how I probably wanted to write her the child seat ticket too. "Y'all wanna write tickets for everything. He fine without the straps. I ain't gon' crash or nothin" She seemed to truly believe her child would survive a major collision if he was not strapped into his child safety seat.

Mom simply could not believe that I cared about her son. My main concern was the safety of her child,

which is more than I can say for her...

7 comments:

Sister Copinherhair said...

I am sitting here reading this in disbelief...truly appalled. How can a mother be so stupid? Totally moronic people out there...

Not a Granny said...

Why am I not surprised??

Although, I can tell you that as a passenger in my daughters car, I did watch my 3 year old grandson unbuckle his should straps to his car seat and try and squirm out...My daughter pulled over right away and resecured him. But it was a battle for a few months!

Anonymous said...

I'm thinking this is the same parenting logic my mom was using (and I love my mom, I'm totally not dissing her) when she would thrust her arm across my seat if she had to make a hard stop or if someone cut us off in traffic. She did it a couple of weeks ago. I'm an adult with two children of my own and I was driving.

We locally have a number we can call to rat on people we see who have not properly restrained their kids in a vehicle. I have it programmed into my cell phone. As it stands here, I'm amazed at your self restraint because I'm assuming you didn't slap her.

Officer "Smith" said...

No. Not physically anyway.

Anonymous said...

Oh wow!!!

Here's a funny - Years ago our eldest was 2.. Sitting all strapped in in the back singing away. Raining hard I'm driving down an old farm town road in the middle of no where. She starts to unbuckle to come kiss me! I see it and pull over quickly as I'm telling her no! I pull off to the side. Rebuckle her and start to drive away! I am now, stuck in the mud on the shoulder of the road.

Farmer had to rescue us by pulling us out with his tractor. And was quite upset till I told him why I pulled over. Then he was very nice.

Even funnier was when I went to my college class a week later and heard the man telling everyone about this woman and child he had to rescue! I smiled and said 'Thank you!' While he looked at me.. the same woman .. in surprise!

I would do it all over again! Her safety is more important then mine! Allthough now my car is stocked with a little more provisions.
-Dispatcher

Sabra said...

I see it a fair amount. I always tell people "Even assuming you're the best driver on the planet, you can't control all the other idiots on the road."

The law here in TX recently changed so that kids have to be in a booster until age 8. Right after it went into effect, one of the moms at my daughters' school asked me if I'd bought new car seats. I couldn't figure out what she was talking about until she mentioned the law. My 5- and 7-year olds have been in booster seats (and the oldest isn't getting out of hers in March, either) because they're just not big enough to fit the belts properly. On the other hand, I had to have a social worker insist to my ex-husband that he use car seats at all (even for the toddler)!

The Grumpy Dispatcher said...

I can relate to little ones unbuckling themselves, having six at home (so far!). That is marginally excusable, but it is prudent to keep tabs on the little ones in the car and detect loose ones before too much time has gone by.

But arguing with you about it? Seriously?? And she's allowed to vote? We shouldn't have to share our AIR with this woman.