The Heat of the Moment

Column for week of August 25, 2014

     Periodically obsessions sweep through the population. 
Hula hoops and cabbage patch dolls were fairly harmless.  Some
obsessions are less benign.  History reminds us of Salem's
obsession with killing witches.  A mere couple of decades ago
an obsession with imaginary sex offenses at day care centers
swept the nation.  Many lives were ruined before this craze was
exposed as a fraud perpetrated by zealots.

     Most people are now familiar with the zero tolerance
craze sweeping through schools.  Zero tolerance for guns means
zero tolerance for gun like trinkets on key chains, pictures of
guns, drawings of guns, pointed fingers, sandwiches chewed into
a gun shape, and even talking about toy guns at a bus stop.

     For sometime now summer usually brings a report or two
of someone leaving an infant in a hot car to roast while the adult
gets drunk or pursues some other vitally important matter.   This
is tragic.  Perhaps the most amazing thing is that in a nation of
more than 300 million people it usually happens only a couple
of times a year.

     Far more people deliberately kill their children. 
Thousands more die from adult conduct that is irresponsible
beyond belief.  Be that as it may, kids alone in cars is the latest
obsession.  The children baked in cars are usually infants
incapable of helping themselves.  The current craze extends to
older children.  There is a difference.

     My mother left me alone in the car from time to time
while going into a store or someone's house.   It was boring but
still probably preferable to being dragged into a store, unless it
was a candy store.

     I still vividly remember one adventure alone in the car at
a neighbor's house.  My mother was in the house.  I was bored
and looking for something to do.  Part of that something turned
out to be pushing the big shiny button on the steering column.

     No, the car didn't explode or lunge into the house.  I
wasn't part of a James Bond movie.  Nothing happened.  And,
nothing continued to happen when my mother returned to the
car.  The car wouldn't start.  The ignition switch was stuck in
off.  I didn't know what I did.  Neither did mother.  Mother
called dad who came and instantly undid what I had done.

     Now I know what happened.  Unusual for its day the car
had a steering column lock.  The key cylinder had been
removed.  The button I pushed locked the steering column and
ignition switch.  All it took to unlock the switch was to put a
finger in the key cylinder hole and push.  Mother didn't know
that.  So, even long ago there were hazards in leaving kids alone
in cars.

     The hazards have grown exponentially with the latest
craze.  A mother accidentally locked her children in her car with
the keys also in the car.  While she was frantically trying to
figure out how to get the car open some helpful soul called the
cops.  The cops arrested the mother.

     Another mother got out of her car to smoke in a parking
lot.  While she was smoking the cops arrested her for leaving the
kids in the car.  I guess leaving doesn't require going very far
away.

     Sometimes tragedy strikes  A mother left her daughter in
the car while the mother went to the bank.  She is dead now, the
mother not the daughter.  The daughter is fine.  The mother was
killed in a bank robbery.  Cars aren't always the most dangerous
place for children.

     The lesson should be to use common sense. 
Unfortunately common sense isn't common enough that everyone
is able to find it.   There is reason to be concerned about
children alone in cars.  A knee jerk reaction that a child alone in
a car equals disaster is just plain wrong.  And, it can lead to
more harm than good.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
                                * * * * *
                                 * * * *
                                  * * *
                                   * *
                                     *
Copyright 2014
Albert D. McCallum