I prayed the entire ride home

Today when I got in my car to go to work, it wouldn't start. The battery was dead. I called DH and told him and he said "oh yeah, when I left for work this morning the back hatch wasn't closed all the way so it probably drained the battery since the light inside stayed on all night." Gee, and you couldn't tell me when you first noticed so we could have seen whether the car would start or not so I could have planned earlier to get a ride to work? Grrr. But that's not the point of this post. Anyway, I managed to get a ride to work from my neighbor, but had to find a ride home if I didn't want to have to wait an extra 45 minutes for DH to pick me up after he got off work. I ended up calling another friend/neighbor who also works at the same place as me to see if I could bum a ride from her. She said no problem, her daughter picks her up so I could just ride home with them. Her grown daughter, daughter's DH and their three boys (10, 8 and 4) all live with my friend. Daughter drives her mom's car everywhere, all the time. So I meet my friend at the corner where her DD picks her up. They tell me to sit in front and as I open the door, that's when I notice that all 3 boys are also in the car and none of them are buckled up, not even the 4 year old. I cringe, because now my friend has to sit in the backseat where there is no room and the 4 year old is, you guessed it, going to be sitting in her lap. Of course mom is wearing her seat belt!

I prayed the entire 25 minute drive home that we'd make it home safely. Of course, I am sure that this is how they drive around all the time. And to think my friend's DD drives those boys to a school out of the normal district in our neighborhood, which is a good 25-30 minutes away and does so twice a day.

I can't even think of a way to say anything to her or if I should say anything at all.

If they aren't even buckled at all, I would definitely say something. This happened a couple of weeks ago. 4 kids in the back seat of an Altima. They didn't know if they were all unbuckled or sharing buckles.
http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/27213/
"The impact of the crashes killed Blackburn and the four children in the (back seat of) Altima: Cynthia Hernandez, 9, Edgar Hernandez, 8, Xochitl Hernandez, 5 of Whittier, and Luis Villegas, 16, of Oakland."

Where the heck do you work, I'd pick you up instead of having you be a part of that.

I personally would not have gotten in. I would've said, I appreciate your willingness to give me a ride home but I am not comfortable riding in a car that would make it an usafe use for the passengers. Everyone should be in seat belts and if I ride there are more people than seat belts. And also, not to be rude, but by law your 4yo needs to be in a child restraint. Everyone buckle up & drive home safe.

Yup, I would've done exactly that!

LuckyFins3Lil'Fish said:

Where the heck do you work, I'd pick you up instead of having you be a part of that.

I personally would not have gotten in. I would've said, I appreciate your willingness to give me a ride home but I am not comfortable riding in a car that would make it an usafe use for the passengers. Everyone should be in seat belts and if I ride there are more people than seat belts. And also, not to be rude, but by law your 4yo needs to be in a child restraint. Everyone buckle up & drive home safe.

Yup, I would've done exactly that!

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I think I would have done the same. You waited a bit for them, I think I would have just waited for my dh.

And this one, which happened while we were in FL on vacation..
http://wokv.com/localnews/2010/04/update-six-people-killed-in-3c.html

4 kids in the back seat, two of them 4-year-olds. All killed.

LuckyFins3Lil'Fish said:

Where the heck do you work, I'd pick you up instead of having you be a part of that.

I personally would not have gotten in. I would've said, I appreciate your willingness to give me a ride home but I am not comfortable riding in a car that would make it an usafe use for the passengers. Everyone should be in seat belts and if I ride there are more people than seat belts. And also, not to be rude, but by law your 4yo needs to be in a child restraint. Everyone buckle up & drive home safe.

Yup, I would've done exactly that!

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I work in downtown Phoenix, right near City Hall. Then you would have had to drive me south to Laveen! And if you don't live anywhere near there, you would have had a heck of a drive home!

I was at a loss of what to do or say at the moment. It was rush hour, I had already told my husband to go on home so I would have had to listen to him complain if he had to go back out of his way to get me plus we were trying to get home at a reasonable hour so we could go back out and see my stepdaughter and her new baby who was born yesterday.

Anyway, I've been trying to find a way to talk to my friend about all of that and I do plan to. Had I known that her daughter was going to bring all of the kids, I would have told her never mind, I'll just get my DH to come get me. But then again, I never would have witnessed what I saw and would never have know they don't buckle the older kids up and that the 4 year-old isn't in a booster, so maybe it was a good thing it did happen so I can now educate them.