Leaving Children Unattended in Cars

Yesterday, as I was picking Ruby up from school, I ran into a distraught parent who had seen someone leave their two-year-old in the car as they ran in to pick up their kid.  “That’s really terrible, isn’t it?” they asked me nervously, and then informed me that they were going to go call the police.  As they ran off, I made a non-committal sort of grunting noise and then shuffled away to get my own child, not wanting to admit to this person that I have done that sort of thing myself.

When Ruby was a baby, I never left her alone in the car.  Ever.  I had heard the stories of kids overheating, suffocating, being stolen, and what have you, and I was not taking any chances.  This lasted about two years, until one day I had to go to the post office.  The post office was literally closing as I pulled in to the parking lot, and I made a split second decision to jump out, leave Ruby strapped in (with the windows cracked of course, and it was not a hot day) and mail whatever it was that I was in a hurry to mail.  The post office had full plate glass windows and I could see Ruby the whole time (I know, because I glanced nervously at her for the duration of my transaction), and I was in there for probably 3-4 minutes.  When I came out, I felt as guilty as sin, and I chastised myself for about a week afterwards.

The second time I left Ruby in the car alone was a few months after that, when I was once again in a hurry, but this time had to buy milk at the store.  I parked, cracked the window, ran into the store (and I mean ran), grabbed the milk, self-checked-myself-out, and was back in the car in less than 5 minutes.  In my mind, if I was gone for less than 5 minutes, why then it wasn’t any different than strapping her in and then going back into the house searching for the diaper bag or my glasses or something.  Truth be told, she often sat in the car for 5 minutes at home while I crashed around trying to get myself together.

When I left the grocery store with the milk, I could swear that people were looking at me, thinking “That’s the guy who leaves his 2-year-old in the car by herself, I am going to call the police!”  I thought I saw someone writing down my license plate number.  I freaked myself out for another week or so.  The thing is, once you do it once or twice, it is easier to do again.

Now I have probably left my children alone in the car a dozen or so times since then, never on a hot day, and never for more than 5 minutes, and I don’t really feel bad anymore.  I do worry about what people are going to think if they see my kids sitting alone in the car unattended, but I always make sure the doors are locked, the windows are cracked, and usually I try to park where I will be able to see them from wherever I am going to be.  If I go inside and see a long line, or some other sort of delay, I either skip it and go back later, or go get the kids out of the car.  I never thought too much further about somebody calling the police on me.

Now apparently, when this parent went out to call the police yesterday, the car had already left, so they reported the incident to the main office and continued to fret about it.  This got me thinking about what the laws really were concerning this issue, so I did what any normal person would do.  I googled it.

As one might expect, the laws vary by state, but the general rule of thumb seems to be that you cannot leave a child under the age of six in the car unattended for more than 15 minutes.  Some laws read “for a period of time that poses an unreasonable risk of harm or injury to the child or under circumstances that pose an unreasonable risk of harm or injury to the child,” but the reports I have read seem to indicate that once you pass about 15 minutes, that’s when you get into trouble.

I did look up the specific laws in Vermont, and it is definitely super illegal to leave anyone under 16 unattended in a vehicle while it is running, however it is not specifically illegal to just leave them in there.  Oh wait, except, and this is very funny to me for some reason, it IS illegal to leave your kids in the non-running car if you go into a place for the purposes of consuming alcohol.  I guess that makes sense, in a weird sort of way, but man, that is super specific.

So luckily I don’t seem to have broken any laws.  And I don’t think the parent at the school today did either (unless Ruby’s school serves liquor).  Many of the laws seem to be regarding the leaving of unstrapped kids in the car with, say, the keys.  That does seem like a recipe for disaster, and I would never leave Ruby in the car with the keys until she is at LEAST seven, which is the proper age for doing unsupervised donuts in the Target parking lot.  But I don’t know, this does seem to be a social grey area.  Would any of you leave your kids in the car alone for 5 minutes on a cool day if they were strapped in?  Am I monster for having done so?  Should we just go back to the good old days when seat belts were optional and our parents used to stuff 6 or 7 of us in the way back of a station wagon to drive an hour to the beach?  After my encounter yesterday, I am very curious as to what the general consensus is.