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Strollerderby
3-Year-Old Drives Into Building
The “driver” behind a traffic accident in Zanesville, Ohio this year won’t be able to get his license for another thirteen years. He’s only three.
Left alone in a running car, the three-year-old knocked the car out of gear, sending it rolling backward into an apartment building.
Fortunately, the kid’s feet didn’t reach the pedal – so the car moved so slowly the Coshocton Tribune reports there was no damage to the car, building or kid and no charges have been filed.
And before you ask what kind of idiot leaves a three-year-old in a running car, I have to admit I just had a recent conversation with my mother about this very thing. And why I’m no longer going to do it with my four-year-old. Because we live in freezing cold New York State, I have on occasion popped out of the car at the post office and left her sleeping in the carseat with the heat on (and the key in the ignition). I walk five or six steps into the post office, grab the mail and pop back into the car – all while she sleeps.
But a reminder of the time my then three-year-old brother nearly backed my parents’ car into the river outside their house was enough to convince me that the time has come to end the practice (the car wasn’t running, but the keys had been left hanging from the ignition – and he not only turned the car on but put it into reverse . . . yes, at three).
Then this story came along. And I’m envisioning my four-year-old knocking the gear shift on my car into reverse, and ending up across the road, through the bandstand near our post office and in the creek. Not a happy thought.
Have you ever left kids in the car with the car running?
Image: Leonid Mamchenkov via flickr
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3 Comments
Lauren commented on Nov 23 09 at 5:38 pmThe car doesn’t have to be running. I did this at 6 by knocking my mom’s stick shift into neutral.
Melanie commented on Nov 23 09 at 11:45 pmI was in a run-away car when I was four. My babysitter left me and her eldest son (same age as me) in her car while she ran into a shop with her toddler. We were parked on a hill, where the road curved sharply at a valley, and the sitter’s son got bored and decided to release the hand-brake. We rolled, and the boy grabbed the steering wheel and turned us away from the drop into the valley – and into the front steps of another shop. We were lucky.
jeremy commented on Dec 27 09 at 8:57 amWhen I was 9 my 3 year old sister was left in the car while my Mom picked me up from a friends house. She put the car in gear, stomped on the gas and knocked the house 6 inches off its foundation. I wasn’t allowed to play with him until the insurance company paid for the repairs. 13 years later, on her first outing in a car by herself she hit a tree AND a house. She wasn’t allowed to drive until she was in college.
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