On my latest road trip I stayed in my lane, obeyed the speed limits and was a courteous driver. Some of the other road users though...made me want to throttle them.
I was on the highway most of the time but while travelling between two towns I was behind a car who held five occupants. Two adults in the front, one teenager and two toddlers in the back.
The part that annoyed me was that the adults wore seatbelts but the kids didn't. They were all over the back seat, waving at me, standing upright and the middle child was literally the middle child - stationed directly in line with the gap between the two front seats and not strapped in.
The level of negligence pushed my blood pressure up about 150 systolic because it made me furious that people like this are allowed to travel anywhere, especially long distance on a highway where the speed limit a lot of the time is 120kms/hr.
In a head on collision those children don't stand a fucking chance and yet the parents will probably survive. These people should be publicly flogged. The level of idiocy is astounding and I simply can't understand how they think it's ok.
There was little I could do as I couldn't flag them down and they didn't stop at the next town where I did, or I would have had some words with them.
Many years ago I pulled up alongside a woman who's child (probably about 4 at the time) wasn't in a car seat even though there was one in the car. I tore her to shreds at the robot and I felt like letting her tyres down when she responded with "oh yes, I've tried asking her but she doesn't listen to me". I had to drive away shaking my head or it would have ended badly. You are a fucking parent. You are the adult. You don't ask your child to sit and stay strapped, you instruct them for all fear of life and liberty to stay in their fucking car seat and if they don't listen once, you ensure that the punishment is sever enough that they don't do it again. I'm not talking physically here, but you ground them and revoke as many privileges as necessary to drive the point across that you are not kidding.
I think some parents these days have just got soft or too complacent or just don't care enough to do their duty of protecting their kid in this regard. It's not a nice to have or a matter of choice, it should be non-negotiable.
There is simply no excuse for a grown adult to willfully put their child in a situation where they will probably die or be severely harmed because of their lack of foresight... Although these are also probably the type of parents who drink and drive with their kids in the car, so it's not rocket science - they're morons and should be punished to the furthest extent of the law or lose their license. I know I shouldn't let it get to me that much, but my word, it does. It is disgusting and really needs to be targeted and tackled by traffic departments or they too are just as guilty.
The image is mine, taken by me of a mustang that isn't mine (unfortunately)