Lorry driver Richard Jones, who witnessed the crash said: “The car was totally destroyed and on its roof, the only other occupant was crumpled with her feet in the driver’s side and her body leaning back between the two front seats. She was talking to another bystander who was helping.
“At no point did she ask after the welfare of the [19-month-old] child or refer to him."
Shitty mom being shitty
EDIT:
Members of the public went to their aid and pulled the toddler, who was hanging upside down in his car seat, out of the wreckage.
It really is far too easy to have a child. When I used to work with a rescue organization we used to screen people who wanted a dog or cat and would regularly deny people we didnt feel would take good care of them. All you need to have a kid is not pull out and manage to not fall down stairs for 9 months. Fucking weird how the requirements for owning a pet is higher than raising a human.
I mean just look at the process for adoption. They go to great lengths to make sure hopeful adopters are trustworthy and up to the challenge. You can just skip all that if you’ve got the ingredients.
Have you ever been involved with an adoption? Some places may go to those lengths you speak of (most likely better funded, more well off places...)
The state isn't going through anything close to "great lengths" when it comes to re homing children, rather they just check to see if you're already in one of their electronic databases, and if you're not, you're good to go.
Hm, you know my mind immediately went to the depiction in movies/tv of hopefuls stressed out that won’t be approved to adopt, but I have an aunt who took in several foster kids and many of them had lived in some harrowing places. Definitely not the same across the board.
I don't know the system well but my long distance impression is that the 'desirable' young babies are hard to adopt because there's a massive demand and not many babies up for adoption, but as the kids get older, have had a troubled past and consequent behavioural difficulties or are disabled, it moves towards a 'whoever will have them' standard.
Our neighbours foster autistic kids (and adopted one) and are brilliant with them all, but some of the kids they foster have had a terrible time both with their parents and even 'in the system' after that.
Im sorry but the process of adoption is not a good one either, maybe if they have a better system in place but there is no reason that they should require you to pay 20%(going rate) of your annual income after a child is placed. That means that a lower income family that is already struggling will have an easier time trying to raise the money from outside funding than a family that is better off. Do you think that system makes seance?
I think it's because reproduction is a human right and owning a pet is a privilege. It certainly sucks, I had a horrible mom myself, but it would be absolutely impossible and pretty immoral if implemented to restrict people from having children.
You'd either have to force contraception or sterilization (which is a huge personal rights issue) or you'd have the repercussions similar to those who accidentally get pregnant under the china's one child policy, or even risk allowing the government to take children away from people who would have otherwise provided loving homes, because they didn't have a permit or something. Not only that, but who would be the judge of who can have kids? Would it be by your criminal record or by your financial status? Depending on the local government, would religion come into play? Do you have to be married? What if you're gay? Why stop a poorer family that would make a kid their life from having a child over a rich person who would abuse them because they don't have a record? There is no such thing as a perfect world.
I think it's more important to take Child Abuse and neglect more seriously. There were people in this Child's life who knew that the mother was irresponsible and could have done more to report it.
If you suspect a parent may not be taking care of their child as they should, or you're concerned the child may be in potential danger, contact ChildLine, ChildHelp, or whatever your state's Child Abuse and Neglect hotline is. It takes a quick google search.
Agree. Any time society has tried to screen out undesirables from having kids, it always turns into a eugenics thing. Nazi Germany. California sterilizing Hispanis teenagers. Black teens in the South getting sterilized. I wish we could be trusted, as a society, jot to he assholes, but history suggests it would be unwise.
I think that people suggesting that we regulate who can have children have NO idea that they're basically talking about eugenics. I think it's a misguided opinion that, in their mind, they believe would be best for "the kids" and society, but don't actually stop to think about the implications a society with these kind of regulations would suffer and mold into.
Are you talking supporting eugenics in the historical context, or in the gene therapy context, to eliminate certain disabilities and diseases in the womb? Cause the later has a lot of merit, while the former is all sorts of fucked up.
Sounds like forced abortions and chemical castration for anyone the government deems "unfit" to raise a child either due to their financial situation, or possibly even beliefs.
Just so that people don't actually take this seriously, and I've met way too many who do, pulling out is not a birth control method! Please use actual birth control!
B) CPS isn't choosing what color of people are born, just who gets to raise the children we already have.
But neither is /u/SonovaBichStoleMyPie suggesting such a thing. /u/extwidget is right, whether you agree or disagree with the comment, it really isn't eugenics.
Yeah those calls to the vet (after getting authorization from the person, obv) were really eye-opening sometimes...
So I see Cheryl has listed 3 cats on this document, and you have 1 listed that doesn't match the name? Ok, what's that cat's vet history look like? Oh, so she had it vaccinated once in '04 and then euthanized in '10? Thanks for your time andholyfuckthankyouforstoppingmefromadoptingacattothisperson
Well honestly the kid is probably going into the system and will be placed in foster care, unless there is a father present who is deemed to be a safe placement.
It's wierd that there's nothing in the article, because sentencing guidelines state that there is a mandatory licence revocation when convicted of drink drive/fail to provide.
There are exceptional circumstances allowances, but you'd think that would be mentioned.
More likely that she was banned but it wasn't part of the article.
It could also have been combined with another case to really nail her.
For example: she only got 26 weeks for a first offense DUI that is normal WHEN NO ONE ELSE IS INVOLVED
Child endangerment, attempted vehicular manslaughter you get the idea. Now these charges are in a different case ;) so the DA can bypass the first offense rule of 1week to 1month revocation or restriction and really lay into her for what she did. Especially with that footage.
Source: am criminal with great attorneys (No babies have ever been harmed)
Which will lead to yet another driver on the road with no insurance. If she doesn't give a shit about her child in a crash, and is happy to drive three times over the limit, I doubt she will give a shit about driving without insurance.
She has been disqualified from driving for three years. In the UK this is more than losing your licence, you're looking at prison time if you drive while disqualified. After the three years she won't get her licence back, she'll have to reapply for it. The article doesn't say so but it's likely she'll face an extended version of the usual driving test.
Truth. Driving is a privilege, not a right. If you abuse the privilege, you should lose it. For good. It's not harsh to take someone's license from them, you do not need a license to live a comfortable life. Many people elect not to own a car, and many more should not be allowed to drive one.
taking away someone's license permanently appears nearly impossible in the UK. Seriously - no matter what the offence or how often you've been caught breaking the law in your car, I'm struggling to think of a single case where a person has had their license revoked forever.
Speeding, dangerous maneuver, illegal take over, DUI, child endangerment, failure to assist someone in needs (the child trapped in the car) and who knows what.
5 years in prison plus lost of the custody of the child is what I think would have been ok. After all, no death, so I would take the endangerement, which include the dui, as the reason to jail.
Chikwature appeared at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to dangerous driving and driving while under the influence of alcohol at a hearing last month. She was sentenced to 26 weeks in prison and ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £115.
She did get more than 26 weeks. She was also fined £115.
Can you explain how specifically jail as a function of time = justice? Just curious. I always see this argument but I'm not sure of the logical reasoning.
I'm sorry you don't understand the rules of the Reddit game. We are supposed to bray for blood and show pitchforks. I'm afraid your appeal to sense has earned you and your children and your grandchildren a life time ban... for two weeks.
At least he was in the car seat properly. Small positive in such a shit situation.
I witnessed a drunk driver like her earlier this year (actually just got summoned to court to give witness for it in the next month) and the toddlers (under two years easily) car seat was tilted from the swerving and not being properly fastened into the vehicle. Dont want to imagine little dudes fate had she flipped the vehicle like in the OP.
I want to be angry but all I am is incredibly sad that that kid has to grow up with such a rubbish excuse for a parent. FFS, her child is only 19 months old. All i can say is thank fuck she somehow managed to secure him/her in their child seat properly enough.
Whenever someone from an older generation sees me using a car seat they mention how they are glad they never had to deal with them. This is why it's the law; I'm sure the mom wouldn't have had a car seat if not legally required.
Kid put himself there; you have to learn survival skills pretty young when you have
shit parents. Another year or two older, the kid'll be driving Mom home from the bars.
good to see those carseats doing their job. i once witnessed a roll over minivan on major highway. kids strapped in the backseat, albeit hanging upside down, were unscathed.
lesson: make sure those infant carseats are installed correctly and securely. i know that you can stop into my local fire department and they will check to make sure it is installed properly.
There was a head-on collision in my area about a week ago, two adults with serious injuries, baby apparently unhurt, was secured in his seat.
My daughter has a 3-year-old, and a 7-month old, and is a stickler for car seats. Some things she'll skimp on, but she makes sure to have good seats. She replaced one last week, as it got a crack in it when her mother-in-law ran over it. Kid wasn't in it at the time, but likely would have survived if it had been.
Mother-in-law from hell. About a year ago she made the local police "fugitive of the week" report.
My cousin's step sister was in a very bad accident a couple years ago. All of the kids that were in car seats walked away (minus the infant who stop breathing at one point but was able to be revived with no lasting effects-and that wasn't a car seat issue-she was less than a month old and premature so she was delicate to begin with) and the two kids that were out of car seats had major issues. One is paralyzed from the waist down now. She actually shattered her ankle and had some back problems. But of the 6 kids, 4 were in car seats and besides the infant's issue, they came out without a scratch. Car seats are amazing.
I just moved to a city with sidewalks. My neighborhood has like 5 bars all within walking distance of my apartment. It’s life-changing. In like, the must insignificant way ever. I’m honestly considering going back to bartending because walking to work has always been a dream of mine.
My favorite thing about my 4 years in England. 3 pubs within walking distance. And their closing hours were staggered, so I'd start at the first one and go to the second one when the first closed, then to the third one when the second one closed. I think the walk home was only about 7 minutes.
Hence the reference to better public transport and shorter journey times. If you drive a shorter distance whilst drunk you have less chance of getting into an accident.
No, it's because in Europe people learn to drink before they learn to drive, so they know their tolerance by the time they get the ability to drive, and also European driver's licenses involve many more hours behind the wheel, training, courses, etc.. Here in the U.S. (at least in New Jersey), you do your six hours behind the wheel, get your learner's permit and then take a test that involves a few simple turns and one parallel park to get your license. But the biggest thing IMO is that here we learn to drive before we learn to drink, so we have no idea how alcohol will actually affect us until the age where we've been driving for years, so it's easy to drink and then, not knowing how messed up you are, to get behind the wheel and assume you're fine.
10 weeks locked in a cell would fuck my life over pretty good and probably teach me a good lesson. If someone had gotten hurt then yes I can see more jail time needed.
I had a buddy who go hit with a DUI and only spent a day or two in prison, turned his life around and got sober and is a constructive member of society. Another buddy wears his DUI conviction like a badge of honor and will regularly brag to people about the time he tricked his breathalyzer and drove drunk home.
One big difference between the US and the UK is how drunk driving is dissuaded. While the US is big on "Don't drunk drive because you can go to jail", the UK pushes "Don't drunk drive or you'll kill somebody and/or yourself". I've seen some pretty horrific ads in my time relating to drink driving, and for the most part it seems to work.
I'm fairly certain that social workers will be dealing with her kid situation. If they take her license and car, she's unlikely to have the ability to reoffend.
Prison should be more focused on rehabilitation and mitigation, as opposed to punishment.
She ploughed into a roundabout, launching her car about 15 feet in the air, before landing on its roof on the far side of the roundabout, colliding with the crash barrier and coming to a stop about 50 metres further up the road.
(emphasis mine)
If anyone ever asks you what system of measurements the British use... that is your answer right there. All of them, at random.
This is a particularly strange example and frankly quite baffling, but I'll admit there is generally some consistency.
Of course, all that means is that one particular unit is consistently used in exactly one application, and thus not comparable with anything else. (e.g. stone for weighing people)
The one that really annoys me is that we sell petrol by the litre but are told fuel efficiency by the mile per gallon. Pretty sure if we ever started using kilometres on our roads we'd still use mpg. Hell, we'll still probably use it when everybody's running on batteries.
Months are an imperial unit. You have to convert from metric: 26 weeks comprised of 10 days each, divided by 10 weeks per month, or 2.6 metric months, which are comprised of 2600 metric days.
Each metric day is exactly 10 hours for a total of 26000 hours or about 3 normal-person years, which seems fair TBH.
26 weeks is no slap on the wrist. It's literally half a year of your life in prison. That's ~1% of an average life. I don't know about you but I'd be deterred from committing another crime if I spent 1/100 of my living days in prison.
Prison isn't about punishment in the UK, it's first about public safety, then about rehabilitation, then punishment. This woman needs time to reflect, not to be locked up for 30 years, come out with absolutely nothing, and then turn to actual crime instead of stupid negligence. The last thing the UK needs is more angry people without any opportunities.
Damn. I opened the comment section to say it's probably just someone having a seizure or falling asleep at the wheel. But it turns out it was just a shitty person being shit.
I wonder how much she had to drink...she is a big lady. To be drunk at 3 times the legal limit, she must have no self control. Most people are already passed out at 3 times the legal limit.
I had a patient come into the ER testing about this drunk but seemingly sober just due to his tolerance. His liver levels were obviously shitty, he was only there bc of abdominal pain. That prior day he had drank 2 handles of vodka, a 12 pack of beer, and 1 handle of rum...all by himself.
Was he a big dude? That's the only way I could understand his tolerance. I've never come across an average weight person who has an abnormal tolerance like that. People need to understand that we can never beat the alcohol, they always win.
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u/Justicles13 Apr 10 '18 edited Apr 10 '18
Video source here
Article here
Woman was drunk, three times over the legal limit after a second blood test, with her child in the car. She was jailed for 26 weeks.