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It is the fault of the care taker of the child or the driver.
Why does "fault" always have to be assigned? Someone can slip on an icy patch (common here in Colorado), a car can skid, the driver or the parent can be momentarily distracted. I mean, I know that never happens to you, but the rest of us humans have our moments.
A part of the safety issue is kids walking through the parking lot to get to the store, mall, whatever
Exactly why my post has them not walking through the parking lot. It has them parking just as close to the building, but crossing in an area with much less traffic, followed by walking a short distance on a sidewalk. No more walking through the parking lot than having the spaces right at the front door.
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Originally Posted by Katiana
Also, kids' exercise tolerance is less than an adult's. So closer to the door is better, simply for the safety factor.
That argument doesn't hold up when you are taking the kids to the mall or huge department store and they are going to have to walk around for the next 3 hours anyway. The difference of a couple hundred feet is negligible. And for grocery stores, ok, but in that case, if either the child cannot walk for 200 extra feet, or the parents can't carry the child for 200 feet, either the child or the parent NEEDS to be walking the extra distance for exercise, because they are extremely out of shape. Beyond that, seeing how much energy kids generally have compared to how much less energy adults generally have, I'm not sure I agree with this premise anyway.
How about this argument. At places like malls or large department stores, put the parent's spaces at other entrances than the main one. If the main entrance is on the north side near Dillards, put the parents spaces right at the door, but on the east side, near Macys (or whatever). TONS less traffic, but still all the other benefits you all are talking about. Maybe this is already what stores are doing. I don't know as I have never seen a parent space anywhere in my town.
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A wider parking spot is also helpful. I"m beginning to think that some of the objectors on this forum have never been in a parking lot, ever. They've never had the experience of trying to unload a cart full of groceries with the people on either side of them getting in and out of cars, let alone trying to do this with kids in tow. And yes, you put the kids in first.
Not sure if this was in response to my post or not. I assume so, since you bolded part of it. If so, you misinterpreted what I was saying. I totally agree with you on this point. My point was that if you put the parent spaces in a SAFER place, most parents would STILL choose the closer narrow space over having to walk, on a sidewalk, an extra few feet, to get to the wider spot, because most people are lazy.
Exactly why my post has them not walking through the parking lot. It has them parking just as close to the building, but crossing in an area with much less traffic, followed by walking a short distance on a sidewalk. No more walking through the parking lot than having the spaces right at the front door.
That argument doesn't hold up when you are taking the kids to the mall or huge department store and they are going to have to walk around for the next 3 hours anyway. The difference of a couple hundred feet is negligible. And for grocery stores, ok, but in that case, if either the child cannot walk for 200 extra feet, or the parents can't carry the child for 200 feet, either the child or the parent NEEDS to be walking the extra distance for exercise, because they are extremely out of shape. Beyond that, seeing how much energy kids generally have compared to how much less energy adults generally have, I'm not sure I agree with this premise anyway.
How about this argument. At places like malls or large department stores, put the parent's spaces at other entrances than the main one. If the main entrance is on the north side near Dillards, put the parents spaces right at the door, but on the east side, near Macys (or whatever). TONS less traffic, but still all the other benefits you all are talking about. Maybe this is already what stores are doing. I don't know as I have never seen a parent space anywhere in my town.
Not sure if this was in response to my post or not. I assume so, since you bolded part of it. If so, you misinterpreted what I was saying. I totally agree with you on this point. My point was that if you put the parent spaces in a SAFER place, most parents would STILL choose the closer narrow space over having to walk, on a sidewalk, an extra few feet, to get to the wider spot, because most people are lazy.
Re: the bold, yes, make sure the parents and the kids know their place. Make sure the parents know what a nuisance their kids are.
As far as exercise tolerance, you have obviously never taken small children to a grocery store or mall. If they're old enough to walk, you do frequent breaks. You go to the food court; you're standing around a lot looking at merchandise; you carry them sometimes.
I recommend you go volunteer at a day care center or somewhere that has a lot of kids.
As a childless person, I don't really care, since I always park on the far end of the parking lot and walk for the extra exercise anyway. I don't understand (young, healthy) people who drive up and down the aisles looking for a close space for 10 minutes, while I've already parked at the far end and walked into the building, they are still circling, but then they can go into the mall and walk around shopping for 3 hours. Is walking through the parking lot that much different than walking inside the mall (at least on nice days)?
But it seems to me that having these parent spaces near the front door wouldn't be any safer. The most dangerous time for kids in a parking lot seems to me to be when the parent is distracted by loading/unloading kids/groceries/packages from the vehicle. Following that time would be when you actually cross from the parking lot over to the sidewalk. Having both of those times take place near the front door, where the traffic is the highest, doesn't seem safer to me.
If it was really all about safety, I'd make the parent's spaces wider, but put them off to one end or the other of the parking lot, away from the front door, but near a sidewalk, so that they are away from the heaviest traffic, but still don't have to walk through the parking lot to get to the entrance, they just cross over in an area with far less traffic and walk on the sidewalk.
I'd bet that most parents would look for a narrow space closer to the door rather than the wide, reserved, parents space that had them having to walk a hundred feet farther on the sidewalk.
Just my $.02
Most parents I know would opt for the wider, further away space, some would prefer the spaces to be further away as then its less likely some arsehole without kids will use them. And as I mentioned earlier, some carparks already do the parent and child spaces in that way.
I only read the last pages of this thread, but not sure why anyone cares if these spaces exist or not? The ones I have seen are 2 spots in a parking lot of 100 spaces. Also, there is no penalty for parking there if you don't have kids.
The parent should not be allowing ANY DARTING OPPORTUNITIES when they have small children. Good god. When your children were small, did you? Am I the only one recalling getting my purse ready while sitting in the car, walking over to the child's door, either carrying or FIRMLY holding the child's hand with a unh uhn parking lots are dangerous for so much as a tiny tug? Rinse and repeat that for 5 years and you are going to be getting a lot more bang for your educational buck than saying OK now at 5 you are "old enough" to walk in the parking lot without holding hands.
I don't care if companies choose to do this. One more thing to roll eyes at.
Kids are kids and things DO happen. I don't care how perfect of a parent you think you were/are. Children are unpredictable. While you're putting one in the grocery cart, the other could easily dart out or even walk 2 feet and get hit by a car. Unless, of course, you were using one hand to put the younger one in the cart and had a firm grip on the other with your other hand.
The bottom line is, things happen. I don't care how careful you are. That's why they're called "accidents".
I only read the last pages of this thread, but not sure why anyone cares if these spaces exist or not? The ones I have seen are 2 spots in a parking lot of 100 spaces. Also, there is no penalty for parking there if you don't have kids.
Because some people need something to complain about!
Re: the bold, yes, make sure the parents and the kids know their place. Make sure the parents know what a nuisance their kids are.
Once again, that is completely misinterpreting what I am saying. My entire point is that if we are saying these spaces are for SAFETY reasons, then put them in SAFER places, away from the main entrance of the store. The main entrance is the least safe place in the parking lot, and putting the spaces right next to the busiest place in the lot makes NO sense.
Alternate entrances are no less convenient, so it isn't like they are being punished. When I go to the mall, I ALWAYS park at one of the back entrances. It isn't like it matters once you are inside the mall, anyway, unless you are only going to one store, and it is just inside the front entrance.
Again, I always park at the far end of every parking lot anyway and have never seen any of these spaces anywhere in my town, so I don't care, personally. I just don't get the logic of putting them in the least safe place in the parking lot, and then saying they are there for safety.
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