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I just learned about the incident recently, though it happened over a year ago. The targets, along with their younger sister, hang out at my house all the time to play with my DD, and I learned about the incident directly from them. They are both very bright (the younger of the two is identified as gifted) and responsible (the older practically runs her house) kids who would not make this sort of thing up.

Nobody contacted law enforcement at the time the incident occurred. They reported the incident to their mom immediately, and I'm not sure why she didn't report it, though she is noted to have some rather startling memory issues.

I spoke to law enforcement through the grapevine (I have a coworker who is a volunteer reserve deputy, who brought the question to his superiors) and have been advised that they should still be contacted, even though it's been over a year since the incident occurred.

My DW and I disagree on what to do next... she wants to persuade the mom to contact the police herself, where I'm ready to call them and make my own report. She's worried about stepping on her friend's feelings, where I believe our DD's safety (and the safety of all the other little girls on the street) trumps that concern.

We agreed to give DW a chance to talk to the other mom first, but then we went on vacation. I'll be resurrecting this conversation shortly.

Dude - we had a similar incident where we live. A man tried to talk my son's friend and his sister into walking over to his vehicle he'd parked in our cul-de-sac. He did not see the children's mother behind him walking towards her children. When the kids started yelling, the man took off in his car without bothering to close the passenger door he'd opened.

We called the police, it was broadcast on the local news, and the man was eventually arrested trying to do the same thing in another part of town. He was a registered offender. The police really do need to know, because it is the only way they can track incidences of offenders who travel about to different areas or to build a case against someone they're watching.

We still allowed our kids to walk home after that, but they walked in packs, not alone. And if one of them had to stay at school late so that the streets were emptied of parents and other students, one of us went to pick them up.

While we can't protect against everything, being smart about the independence we give is just as important.

One of the things that contributed to my insistence on evalutating risks for myself beginning around 7 or 8 was a series of incidents when I was 7-9. Noteably, a particular car gunned its engine and sped around a particular corner at me repeatedly durring my short (sight of the window) walk to school (I was 9), and I became very affraid of a family member who was babysitting me (and his own daughter) who was drinking a lot (I was 6).

No-one believed me in any of the cases, though in one, the dead guy was later found (heart attack, but several of us told the teachers about a guy slumped in his car). I was often disciplined for lying.

So if you're going to be very protective, I guess make a point of taking the kid seriously!

Add us to the list of people who limit car travel.

We are *not* particuarly interested in using carseats for the absolute longest period of time etc. We have at times had to use dangerous drivers or stand up on busses while carrying babies because transporting carseats was impossible... we'd have been safer in a car with a safe driver and no carseat. I think the incremental improvements in safety with state-of-the-art ideal practice in carseats are often over-represented and miscalculated in the scheme of things (especially with respect to the quality of the driver, especialy when the kid is crying).

**Please note, we do use carseats correctly when we use cars, we just try to see the whole picture. One of the reasons he fussed so much is that we really did do up the straps tight enough, and a lot of people told us "it's because you have the straps too tight!!!" weeeelllllllll.

Anyway. The upshot of the whole thing is that we strongly resist the need to use roads, including choosing walking routs carefully.

Amusingly, a child services worker once strongly advised me to accept a ride without a carseat rather than to walk 30 mins outdoors in the summer carrying my baby. Because apparently summer air is THAT dangerous. It was abut 27 degrees.

-Mich.

Another thing to consider in the OP's situation is that the caretaker of the friend was a grandparent. I was recently at the shore with my kids, my MIL, and 3 nieces/nephews, for whom MIL had primary responsibility on this trip. There were things I was comfortable letting all the kids (my 3 and my niece/nephews) that my MIL didn't allow the kids to do because, in her own words, she was more worried about what could happen to her grandkids than she would have been with her own kids, 30+ years ago. So just another thing to consider.

Lucy

I'll buy that. There were risks people took a generation ago that few would take today. We were shockingly ignorant.

For example, back in the days of bench seats, I remember when my little brother was a toddler, he'd stand up in the front seat of the car, between my parents. If the driver had to make a sudden stop, they'd both throw an arm out in front of him. If you'd have told them that it would be physically impossible for two grown adults to restrain this little guy under the force of a real accident, they'd have laughed.

The real problem with car seats as I see it is that life doesn't always fit into the rigid guidelines that policy makers prefer. A fairy doesn't cast a spell that imparts sufficient neck strength for them to safely face forward on the eve of their first birthday.

We've applied common sense to err on both sides of our local law. We put DD in a forward-facing seat before the law allowed because she'd outgrown the rear-facing seat. Now she's old enough and large enough to legally eschew the booster seat, but she's still in one, because otherwise the shoulder strap is over her neck.

Of course, policy-makers make rigid guidelines because too many people can't be trusted to exercise common sense. I once met a woman who moved her toddler to the front seat because he was fussy. She was cited for it, and she had no idea why. The consequences of an under-height passenger and an airbag deployment were already common knowledge by then.

New rule is age 2, not age 1, just for anyone reading along who may not know and has kids of this age (probably doesn't apply,. but just in case).

Anyway, I've always assumed that when they make guidelines like this, they're going by a 90% rule, or something...90% of kids have sufficient neck strength by age 2, or whatever. Many will have it before and a few will not have it till afterwards. Of course it doesn't magically happen on the eve of the first birthday, but.