conuly: (Default)
conuly ([personal profile] conuly) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt2025-07-02 11:38 pm

(no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

Our house sits on a heavily wooded hill, and there isn’t much in terms of street lights—and no sidewalks. Though there are only a few houses on our bend of the road, we get people speeding through. We have new neighbors. The mother’s behavior is going to end in tragedy.

The neighbors have several very small children. The mom, for some unholy reason, thinks nothing of letting them bike in the street. She lets her babies ride around well ahead of her as she strolls leisurely several yards behind. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself.

My husband has already had a close call with one of the kids. He was backing out and the toddler zoomed right behind the bumper. Luckily, my husband was paying attention and was fast to put his foot on the brake. Even going as slow as he was, just a few miles per hour, it would have been a tragedy if he hadn’t been alert.

The mother’s reaction was to lay into my husband for not being careful enough! The kicker is that she said her kids have a right to play in the street. (There is a park five blocks away, but that is too far for her to go, apparently.) My husband said it was a bad conversation.

What do we do here? It would haunt me if one of these kids got hit because their mother was too lazy to care.

—Blind Corner


Dear Blind,

Well, not only has this neighbor of yours created a dangerous situation, she’s preemptively precluded me from giving the advice I wanted to give. I was going to suggest that you look for an opportunity to “accidentally” discover her kids being reckless so you could loudly tell them to be careful because you were sure their mom wouldn’t want them to get hurt!

Unfortunately, since a non-staged version of this has already happened, and your neighbor’s reaction was to get all indignant and annoying with your husband, I think this ship has sailed. You don’t have the plausible deniability required to pull off such a passive-aggressive act anymore, and I don’t have any confidence that she’d be moved by it!

I’m not sure you have any direct courses of action. Short of egregious negligence, what people let their kids do is their business, and if she’s at least near her children while they’re in the street, I’m not sure this warrants a call to the police or protective services. But there are some things you could try. You could put up a “kids playing” sign in your own yard, if you have kids, and you can continue to drive carefully and slowly yourselves. It does also seem like the kind of issue you could raise inconspicuously with other neighbors if you know them well enough; maybe someone else expressing concern to her in a situation other than a near-accident would be the right kind of nudge. Another constructive idea: Look for a pedestrian/cyclist or safe streets advocacy group in your area that you could get involved with. It sounds like the area could maybe use sidewalks—or curb extensions or speed bumps to slow traffic.

Link
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[personal profile] dissectionist 2025-07-03 04:50 am (UTC)(link)
It’s both a structural and a parenting problem, because while the current situation of an unsafe road shouldn’t be the situation, that is the current situation. And any parent shouldn’t be such a damn fool that they look at a potential tragedy and think, “Well, it’s that asshole’s fault, they should be safer, so I’m not going to change our behavior to accommodate that drivers are often careless.”

I guarantee the fact that a driver should have been safer will be no comfort at all when her kid is plastered across the road.

Yes, it sucks that others don’t exercise due caution at all times. But they’re simply not going to. This is why I teach my kids things like “don’t use your cell phones while crossing the road” because every year pedestrians get turned into roadkill because a driver plows into them while they’re distracted. Other people are going to do dangerous things so we need to protect ourselves - and teach our kids to do so - when we’re in very foreseeable situations where we’re vulnerable to the actions of others.
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[personal profile] dissectionist 2025-07-03 02:06 pm (UTC)(link)
They go along the edge carefully, and sprawl out all over the place once they’re in their driveway, a field, the park, or anywhere else that isn’t going to have cars zooming along. LW used the husband’s story as illustration that it’s dangerous even with a careful driver, but was also clear that other people drive fast around the blind curve regularly. LW can back into their driveway (a great idea!) and install backup beepers all they want, but that won’t save those kids from being wiped out by another driver that’s zooming the curve. (And yes, they advocate for more infrastructure, though that’s still not going to make it safe for the kids to play *in the road* - it’ll just make the shoulder more clearly delineated and easier to ride on.)
katiedid717: (Default)

[personal profile] katiedid717 2025-07-03 04:24 pm (UTC)(link)
I grew up in a town with no sidewalks and I played in the street a LOT. Now, I lived on a cul-de-sac so there wasn't a huge amount of through traffic, but we were not allowed to play in the street until we understood that if you heard or saw a car, you stopped what you were doing and ran to the grass to wait until the car went away. Once we were preteens, we were allowed to ride our bikes or walk to the pharmacy a mile away to spend our allowance; the street that made up most of the journal was rather windy and hilly. We needed to stay at the side of the road, no headphones allowed so we could keep an ear out for traffic, etc.

It sounds like this mother needs to figure out age-appropriate rules for her children and actually enforce them.
lucymonster: (Default)

[personal profile] lucymonster 2025-07-03 07:39 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, this is the answer. What other people SHOULD be doing is completely irrelevant when it comes to parenting - it’s our job to be alert to what they ARE doing and adapt accordingly. It sucks not to be able to give kids the freedom they deserve. It would suck infinitely more to have them killed in a completely preventable road accident. I completely agree that the neighbours need to all pull together and advocate for some desperately needed infrastructure upgrades, but until then, holy SHIT mama, get those poor kids off the road! 😱
lucymonster: (Default)

[personal profile] lucymonster 2025-07-03 08:37 am (UTC)(link)
It’s possible I’m missing something, but it very much reads to me like LW is talking about re recreational bike outings rather than necessary travel. If the family in fact lacks a car and are dependent on pedestrian and bike transport for daily life, then that would obviously make the mum’s life a lot harder - she’d need to enforce strict rules about all staying close together on the side of the road, rather than letting the kids zip ahead of her. But in either case I just don’t think “oh well, the kids NEED to ride their bikes on the road, so we’ll just have to cross our fingers and rely on other people to drive safely” is an adequate response to the level of hazard here.
lucymonster: (Default)

[personal profile] lucymonster 2025-07-03 09:09 am (UTC)(link)
Our mileage varies a lot, obviously! Strolling along behind my kids while they zip around on their bikes is exactly how I do recreational bike time. Toddlers don’t go fast enough to keep up with a parent’s bike and aren’t very easy to steer in the right direction while they’re riding, so if we actually need to get somewhere, we either all walk or I ride my own bike and carry the small ones in a bike seat or trailer. When they’re just pootling around the neighbourhood for fun, I supervise on foot.
Edited 2025-07-03 09:10 (UTC)
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)

[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard 2025-07-03 03:27 pm (UTC)(link)
This is also how I see recreational bike riding in my area. (I know it's recreational, because it's up and down the long parking lot in front of the building.)
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[personal profile] harpers_child 2025-07-03 04:47 am (UTC)(link)
Back up camera on the car? The kind that beeps at you?

Buy the kids flags for their bikes and frame it as an apology for the close call? (I have a neighbor who has a recumbent bike he likes to use around dusk in our neighborhood. I've never seen so many lights and flags on a bike.)((It's too hot to bike here when the sun is up in summer. It's obvious when you see him it's part of his ongoing PT.))

Call up whoever is in charge of streetlights and speed limit signs and volunteer to get one of each put in your yard. (This worked for an aunt and uncle who live on a busy street.)
magid: (Default)

[personal profile] magid 2025-07-03 10:49 am (UTC)(link)
My dad taught me to always back into parking spaces, but I can imagine some combination of road challenges (sharp/blind curve) and driveway configuration (short/narrow) that would make it challenging.
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[personal profile] castiron 2025-07-03 01:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Slowly and carefully is the big one here. My driveway's long enough that there's no point in me going down to the street to look for pedestrians, because by the time I got back to my car a bunch of kids could've come around the corner. But I back up at a snail's pace and assume I may need to slam on the brakes, and once I'm at the street I'm looking around before I back up further.
harpers_child: melaka fray reading from "Tales of the Slayers". (Default)

[personal profile] harpers_child 2025-07-03 09:22 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't drive and felt you had covered the safety protocols well in your response.
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[personal profile] minoanmiss 2025-07-03 01:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Buy the kids flags for their bikes and frame it as an apology for the close call?

Oh what a good suggestion! You deserve whatever the columnist was paid.
magid: (Default)

[personal profile] magid 2025-07-03 10:46 am (UTC)(link)
There aren’t sidewalks to ride on. I do wonder how rough the land is next to the road: if the kids have bikes that could handle off-road riding, perhaps that would be an option?
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[personal profile] pauraque 2025-07-03 11:03 am (UTC)(link)
I agree with those saying the parents should be more responsible, but the parents aren't the ones who wrote in. Unfortunately LW and their husband have no leverage to change the parents' behavior, and diplomatic conversation has already been tried. Being as cautious as possible themselves and advocating for structural changes to the street's safety are the only options they really have left.
lilysea: Serious (Default)

[personal profile] lilysea 2025-07-03 02:05 pm (UTC)(link)
There's been a lot of talk recently about how built up urban areas need to adopt a 30km/hr or 40km/hr speed limit [18 miles per hour to 24 miles per hour] in quiet residential side streets [not major feeder roads] to

a) reduce car vs pedestrian
and car vs cyclist incidents

b) increase the survival rate of car vs pedestrian
and car vs cyclist incidents

"Road safety expert calls for 30kph speed limit in urban areas across WA.

WA's Centre for Road Safety research says the measure is the only foolproof way to protect all road users."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-03/road-safety-expert-calls-for-30kph-zones-in-wa-urban-areas/105477616
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[personal profile] dissectionist 2025-07-03 02:11 pm (UTC)(link)
It’s a nice measure, and my neighborhood is 30 km/h. I’d still never let my kids play in the street because drivers speed regularly at about 50 km/h despite the posted 30 km/h signs and occasional speedbump. (They just hit the brakes immediately before a speedbump, go over it at a speed that won’t damage their car, then speed up again.)
ethelmay: (Default)

[personal profile] ethelmay 2025-07-03 05:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Seattle is 25 mph on most arterials now (used to be 30). Of course people go a bit faster, but I think they have mostly slowed down proportionately.
lilysea: Serious (Default)

[personal profile] lilysea 2025-07-03 02:08 pm (UTC)(link)
The bad guy here is not the kids, not the kids mother, and not LW

but whoever decided to

a) not install footpaths

b) not set speed limits that protect cyclists

c) not install street lights.

LW should contact local cyclist advocacy groups and see if they can get some safety improvements to the road.

For starters, are there any trees where pruning the branches back a bit (not removing the tree) would really improve driver visibility?
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[personal profile] topaz_eyes 2025-07-03 03:42 pm (UTC)(link)
This situation isn't uncommon in rural and semi-rural areas. Families who move into one really do need to supervise young kids more carefully. Where there are no sidewalks, pedestrians need to stick to the edge of the road, walk facing oncoming traffic, and wear bright colours to increase their visibility. And parents need to keep their young children close.

Neighbours in these areas can help increase overall pedestrian safety by keeping their road-adjacent edge of the property clear to walk on. Residents need to stop backing onto the road from their driveways--that is illegal in many jurisdictions. Hosting a general road/pedestrian safety session at a local school might be useful to refresh knowledge. People can put up those neon "Children at play" signs, but they're easily ignored. Fixing the structural issues means lobbying the local/regional politicians to install more lighting, add sidewalks/shoulders, reduced speed signs, etc.
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[personal profile] melannen 2025-07-03 06:51 pm (UTC)(link)
As someone who grew up on a street like this, in a neighborhood like this, and still insists on (horrors!) walking around their own neighborhood at will - wearing bright colors is definitely a good idea; and toddlers should obviously be closely supervised (though it sounded like these ones are.) You should walk facing incoming traffic when that is safe and feasible - i.e., if there's zero shoulder on one side of the road and plenty on the other, walk on the side with a shoulder!

Similar to the advice about "sticking to the edge of the road" - while that's certainly more convenient for drivers, I don't really see evidence that it's safer for pedestrians. Especially since many roads like this will often have people parking along the shoulder, so "the edge of the road" is going to be heavily obstructed, uneven, and not have great visbility. You should walk in such a way that drivers can easily see you and avoid you, so that you have time to see and avoid drivers, and you aren't obstructing traffic unnecessarily. Often that means staying at the edge of the road - especially a road with good shoulders, good visibility, heavy traffic, high speed limit, no blind drives.

But often it's safer for everybody for pedestrians to be away from the edge if it's a road with slower traffic and there's no other traffic on the road. Such as in this example, where the pedestrians being away from the edge of the road would have given the driver backing out much more of an opportunity to see them and stop, and they would have more time after seeing him start backing out to dodge.

(also, unless every lane of traffic including right turns has a stoplight, it's substantially safer to cross mid-block than at an intersection. Even if there's a marked pedestrian crossing.)
ethelmay: (Default)

[personal profile] ethelmay 2025-07-03 10:00 pm (UTC)(link)
It doesn't sound to me like a road that is likely to have many cars parked on the edge most of the time. There aren't places where lots of outsiders are going to stop and visit, unless a resident has a big party.
melannen: Commander Valentine of Alpha Squad Seven, a red-haired female Nick Fury in space, smoking contemplatively (Default)

[personal profile] melannen 2025-07-04 12:38 am (UTC)(link)
Most of the roads like that around here often have residents' cars parked on the side of the road. (Yes, they all have driveways, but older houses often only have one-car-wide driveways so a second or third car ends up parked on the shoulder.)
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[personal profile] edenfalling 2025-07-03 05:23 pm (UTC)(link)
My reading of the letter is that A) the mom is letting her kids ride in the driving lanes of the street instead of along the edges, and B) she also thinks they should be able to play in the street instead of biking to the park, playing there, and then biking back. I could well be wrong!

It is unquestionable that the street and neighborhood need better infrastructure, including lights, sidewalks, and perhaps speed bumps. It is also unquestionable that until/unless that happens, playing in the street is a terrible idea. Adding flags to the kids' bikes is a good stopgap measure, as is talking to neighbors about safer driving habits, but getting the neighbors on board wouldn't do anything about non-local people speeding through.

Tangentially, it is damn hard to back into a driveway on a busy street with poor visibility, especially if one is coming home in the dark -- and any solution that starts with "if people would just" is not likely to get you very far.
ysobel: (Default)

[personal profile] ysobel 2025-07-04 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
There may not be much in the way of edge, if there's no sidewalk, and also being on the edge won't protect them from people backing out of driveways.

Also they may have been heading to/from the park. We only have LW's word on the mom being unwilling to go.

...those said, it's dangerous for the mom to put all the responsibility on drivers -- "they should pay attention", while true, is little comfort if something does happen. Flags, reflectors, lights. Teaching her kids good methods.

Personally I'd need way more info before answering ... how busy traffic is, what time of day the kids are out, etc. But also LW can't fix them, just make good adaptations for themselves.
movingfinger: (Default)

[personal profile] movingfinger 2025-07-03 05:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Not clear from LW's letter how busy this road is (I am guessing not actually very because the mother feels comfortable walking on it with children). LW and husband should be going out nose-first if the corner is as dangerous as LW paints it. They should also have at least one mirror to show them what's coming. These are both common measure in the wooded areas where I live. The driveway user does not have ROW to back out no matter what the speed limit is.

If they can't drive well enough to back in, they can put a bulb in their drive to allow them space for a turn.

If LW is genuinely concerned about speeding and safety, then talking to the local government and DPW about signs, striping, and other measures should be her next step, rather than hassling her neighbor.

LW should stop having opinions about how other people and their children dare to go for walks. There is a strong whiff of "how dare they walk where I want to drive instead of driving their children everywhere" here and it's not appropriate.
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[personal profile] liv 2025-07-03 08:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Both the letter and the response are such car-brained bullshit. Children being able to play in their own street is important. Drivers taking the responsibility to look where they're going before they drive into the street, and to take corners at a safe speed, is a bare minimum expectation of being part of society. I totally agree with the kids' mom here. If you can't be bothered to take care when operating heavy machinery that can easily kill people, you're the problem.

And yes, there should be streetlights and sidewalks, but I very much doubt these young children are playing in the road after dark. And they don't have any way to get to this five blocks away park other than going along the dangerous street, so asking them to teleport out of the way so they don't inconvenience any all-important drivers is a non-starter.

If, God forbid, a tragedy did happen, it wouldn't be due to the mom's behaviour, which is entirely reasonable, or the children's behaviour of existing in public. It will be caused by idiots like LW and C&F who aren't willing to accept the slightest inconvenience to avoid killing other people.
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[personal profile] katarik 2025-07-04 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
Oh buddy. So, uh, this is actually what I do for a living, I work with people and their attorneys who are injured in car accidents. Because of this, I have a fact to present:

Backup cameras WILL NOT do anything to alert you about kids if you're in a newer vehicle, because the bumpers are too tall. The toddler zoomed out behind LW's husband: the cameras only register movement in their 'line of sight', and most children under four will be too small to register to an American SUV or truck. A smaller car, you can probably be okay with a child over three, a bicycle would probably be tall enough. Cameras ARE NOT foolproof, they WILL NOT register anything shorter than the bumper they are affixed to, this fact + reliance on cameras has resulted in the deaths of animals and children and will continue to. American vehicles are too large to be safe.

A lot of comments mention backup cameras, which is why I bring this point up.
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[personal profile] harpers_child 2025-07-04 04:39 am (UTC)(link)
That might be my fault. For some reason I assumed LW's husband was in a car sized vehicle and not a SUV or giant truck. I know some of the big trucks in my neighborhood have hoods even with my 5'4" head. Oversized vehicles are a separate problem. The only backup camera I have any personal experience with is on my mom's Subaru and it's angled such as it catches squirrels on the ground.
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[personal profile] zavodilaterrarium 2025-07-04 07:29 am (UTC)(link)
I've never lived in a place where you absolutely couldn't play in the streets, but I've also never lived in a place where it would be particularly advisable for "very small children" to be allowed near cars that might start moving. When I was younger than 5, I don't believe I was really let onto the road for non-travel reasons. "You're too small, nobody can see you, stay back!" was drilled into my head from as early as I was allowed to walk around outside without someone standing guard right beside me. Even now, I take big loops around the fronts and backs of cars if I'm not sure there's a driver inside or not. Cars that are already moving are to be strictly avoided getting close to whenever possible, especially where hills are involved. Better infrastructure should 100% be implemented, but I'd rather not play with fate when it comes to kids and cars.