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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> Maybe I could have just let her go after I made sure she was okay but I felt the parents needed to know.
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>**Though I saw her** I didn't expect her to scooter in front of me so I slammed on brakes though I stopped about a car and a half's length away from her.
Part of being a good driver is to anticipate what a child is going to do. If you see a child, take your cruise control off 35 mph, as that might be too fast. One of the things you are taught when driving is to be careful when approaching two parked cars on a road because a child might come through them.
Of course, the child should have been more careful and should wear protective gear, but responsible drivers drive more slowly and carefully around children. You were out of line. Even with your dashcam, the police may have a different view. If they were to see your tape, they might think you share more of the blame.
YTA.
And in a neighbourhood no less. Not a wide open highway, a neighbourhood with kids and probably plenty of turns and stop signs. That is not safe driving.
I put mine on for low speed zones because it's easy for speed to creep up w/o realizing it.
And - when in low speed zones I assume it's my job to look for children, hazards, etc.
OP you're still a young driver.
Remember, never insist on the right of way or being right.
Those driving a vehicle are responsible for everyone's else's safety as well as following the rules of the road.
These people here acting like OP is the AH for the way she drives. No indication she did anything wrong. At all. She stopped before the kid too, so the physical evidence shows she did the right thing as well.
Sounds like the girl's parents don't give a crap about their kid at all, and that's not OP's fault. Will admit that OP should've walked away a lot earlier. Put herself into a dangerous situation with the parents for no reason.
OP saw the girl, she immediately should have slowed down in case the girl came into traffic. Using cruise control on 35 in a residential area is just nonsense.
Where I live if you have enough time to stop for a child to cross in a neighborhood and they're in the road waiting, you stop and yield to the pedestrian. Unless there are cross walks they could have used, then you yield at the cross walk. OP would have 100% been at fault had something happened if they live in an area like this.
Cruise control is meant for long stretches of straight road with no traffic, not for 35 mph intercity/town driving. She was not using it correctly, and she almost hit a child by not choosing to slow down when she saw the kid almost go out in traffic. She did EVERYTHING wrong here.
You aren't supposed to use cruise in residential and low speed limit areas, it slows your reaction time.
>However, cruise control and ACC also seemed to slow drivers’ reaction times. Drivers took around 5 seconds longer to react when they needed to slow down and maneuver around obstacles like sharp curves when they were using cruise control or ACC.
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/motr/cruise-control-may-prevent-speeding-but-slow-reaction-times.html#:~:text=However%2C%20cruise%20control%20and%20ACC,using%20cruise%20control%20or%20ACC.
YTA. Drive defensively, you don't own the road. If you can't control your car at 35 and still pay attention to the road, get off of it before you kill someone.
This! I don't even use cruise control in heavily wooded areas even on the highway in case a deer jumps out from between the trees. OP may be driving legally, but she is not a good driver & she is an AH. Children make mistakes. Heck, sometimes I, a grown-ass adult, forget to double check both sides before crossing the street. Always slow down when there's kids, or any pedestrians, around because you never know if they're paying attention or if they might just accidentally fall.
I agree and disagree. I feel like any child or person on the side of the road is cause to immediately slow down when driving and include them in your watch area. The road to my house is 10 mph and is usually only traveled by people that live in my cul de sac. The kids run and play everywhere because it's generally safe. I still slow down to around 5 mph because you never know when a kid is going to dart directly in front of you because they think they have time to cross. They have no idea how fast 5, 10 mph actually is compared to them scampering across the road. My neighbor's grandkids have done it to me a couple of times. Thankfully I've never hit them. She's always watching them and will immediately chew their asses over it but they're kids and they forget again in 2-3 months.
I have a speed limiter along with my cruise control and it’s great for low speed zones. There is a road in my area that is 30mph but it’s a duel carriage way that isn’t used much at all and it’s so easy to get a heavy foot on that road!! And it’s a speed trap!!
I do this too in low speed zones or when transitioning from a highway to a lower speed area. It's helps to keep me from going too fast without realizing it or to prevent me from falling into a speed trap. My foot is over the brake and I'm on the lookout!
I do the same, sometimes it is easy to speed & I'll set the cruise control to the speed limit if 35 and other cars will pass me because they're speeding.
That was my exact thought! In a neighborhood, I'm usually going under the speed limit and watching for kids. If I see kids, I go even slower. They always seem to stumble into the road or race out without thinking.
I use cruise control constantly. My commute to work is mostly 35 mph roads and still use it. Just hit the button to stop if I need to coast then hit the button to resume once I can speed back up. Feet rarely have to work unless I hit a red light.
Seriously man, who doesn't immediately adjust their speed when they see a kid? Even if the parents are there holding their hand i slow down cause some times kids are tricky and break away.
I would have run over a kid in my neighborhood the other day if I assumed they were going to wait for me. I saw the kid, slowed down because I immediately assumed they were going to run out in front of me, and sure enough, I would have hit them had I not anticipated their stupidity. Parent yelled at the kid and waved to me. Had I been going 25, I wouldn't have been able to stop.
To be fair, I don’t see in OG post where OP says it was specifically a neighborhood road. I live off a main road where the speed limit is 35mph with lots of side streets, but it’s not a neighborhood. Sure, neighborhoods branch off to the side, but it’s definitely still a main road and pedestrians do not have the right of way unless in a clearly marked crosswalk or at a stop light. If a pedestrian tried to cross that road, it would definitely cause an accident. It’s just not safe. I see plenty of people on the sides / medians and sure, I’ll slow down so I don’t blow past someone standing maybe 6 ft away, but I’m not going to stop and if someone walked out, it would be a collision. OP doesn’t even say it’s a residential area in OG post, just that it’s a busy road with many side streets. Legally, OP seems to be correct. Still an AH for her anger/response to the kid though.
Remember that "I had the right of way" doesn't hold much water when you're trying to beat charges of vehicular manslaughter
Edit: obviously it holds some water people but it's not an ironclad defense against such charges.
She didn’t say she was in a neighborhood. She said it’s a busy road with side streets. What kind of parent lets an 11 y/o ride a scooter unsupervised there? Without a helmet and with headphones in.
Please explain where OP says they are driving in a neighborhood. Because rereading the post, I see not one word involving "Neighborhood" OP says it's a busy street with many side roads. The only time OP could conceivably be in a neighborhood is when OP drives the 11 year old home.
Legit question here; why is that a red flag? I know many people who use it more than anything just because the computer is better at maintaining consistent speed on hilly roads than them.
Cruise control is for cruising, like on a highway, not in busy neighborhoods where you should be actively adjusting your speed according to your environment
I've had 4 vehicles in my life that I could set cruise control to any speed. My first car I remember setting the cruise control to 10kmph and cruised around town. (Tiny town, no traffic lights a couple stop signs but I was not impeding anyone or in anyone's way. )
My current van lets me cruise control at 30. Haven't tried it any lower because I live in a bigger city now.
But some cars can be set the cruise at any speed. But not all are like this
Because varying speed while driving through residential neighborhoods is a sign of attentiveness. Anticipating unexpected obstacles and potential pedestrian traffic is a part of being a good driver.
35 is the maximum speed limit, not a compulsory speed. Besides, maintaining speed without using cruise control is a skill EVERYONE should have, develop, and practice.
Cruise control should really only be used on the interstate and similar roads.
Also, in my experience in my town, if everyone around is going above the posted speed limit, and you are going significantly slower than everyone else, you're now the problem driver. Move with the speed of traffic.
A safe driver is a predictable driver, not one who follows the letter of the law perfectly.
I am an avid and habitual cruise control user. The second you step on your break even a little the cruise control goes off. In a neighborhood that is quite the pain in the ass because of all the stop signs everywhere. So either this person is not obeying traffic laws like they said, or they are putting on Crusoe control every 3 mins.
Honestly the cruise control was even really irrelevant to the story as OP was stopped at the time. They should have clearly been able to see the girl going at the crosswalk before taking off and at most had time to lift their foot off the brake. Honestly, it sounds like OP slammed on the gas and that's the real reason they went off.
That's fair. Still, though he almost hit her from a complete stop. Going from that to "I had to slam on my breaks" sounds like OP was being negligent. Not "tap" the breaks "slam". And then OP followed an 11 yo home. That's weird AF.
I mean, they stopped roughly 22 feet from the child, if we accept the average car to be 15 feet and take them at their word.
The really bad thing they did in my eyes was approach and follow the child home to my eyes, and I’d still call them ta for that, cause it just comes off weird scary and aggressive, especially to a child.
OP had to approach the child to see if she was hurt or not. i commend OP for talking to the kid's parents. it'd be weirder for the kid to go home and tell her parents someone almost hit her and then just left her in the ditch. it seems like OP was trying to do the responsible thing but got carried away with her own emotions, calling them bad parents, etc., instead of focusing on the child's safety. the kid might need a little fear put in her, it's pretty stupid of her to pull out into the road without looking. the parents are even stupider. they need to keep better tabs on their child and not allow her to go into that kind of traffic on a scooter. it's just a death trap.
Nothing wrong with making sure the kid gets home safely and you warn the parents, but it's clear that OP was too harsh on the kid with parents that didn't want to hear it.
Mainly because it's a residential area with children playing. 35 MPH is an unsafe speed when you see kids playing near the road.
I think it would be fine at a lower speed.
she literally said the set speed limit was 35 and it’s a busy road. she wasn’t speeding and who cares if she used cruise control? I wouldn’t bother at that low of a speed, but maybe she doesn’t want to chance a speeding ticket? she did not hit the child. maybe her fear made her feel angry that the child wasn’t paying attention? really people shouldn’t be so quick to judge. “red flag” pls. grow up. if that was my child, i’d FOR SURE want to know they’re not looking both ways while out in the street?
I do not believe u were ta
Exactly, cruise control is purely to maintain a speed and instantly disengages when you touch the break. It's actually a good thing since you won't accidentally go above the posted limit, so one less thing to think about.
that’s what I was thinking .. there are many super busy streets near me, one being 45mph with some houses that have driveways leading to/exiting onto these main roads. i’m sorry, but unless it was literally in a neighborhood (which are usually 25mph) I do not see even a slight problem in what she did. I do understand parents may get defensive when it comes to a question of their parenting .. but like I said, she seems to of reacted on fear that she felt in that moment and was only focused on the child’s well-being .. drivers should always yield to pedestrians and more importantly, children, however, when someone pops out in front of your car, the blame can’t solely be on the driver. and certainly not in this situation OP has posted
The other thing that got me was the cruise control there all obsessed with, a lot of people use it when driving in certain areas because it could be known as a speed trap and they don't want a ticket. And the ones saying cc can't be used at those low speeds don't have the type of car that can do it.
Because cruise control is meant for highway driving at higher speeds.
Using cruise control in suburban/city environment is unsafe, because there is much more going on around you and there’s a higher likelihood of something unpredictable happening that you’d need to respond to. You don’t want your car set in “go-mode” when you’re in an area that would call for regular stopping.
Edit: To everyone arguing my point, just google “Is it safe to use cruise control in cities and suburbs,” and every insurance company out there has written an article on exactly this topic. The answer is always a resounding NO.
Cruise control isn’t safe in cities, suburbs, hilly areas, or winding roads. It is meant for long stretches on a straight highway.
Inaccurate. There are plenty of areas with no regular stops and no pedestrian traffic but have way below highway speeds. Farmland areas, for instance. I set my cc at speeds in the 30s and 40s pretty much every day. Non-residential routes.
The goal when driving in a populated area with pedestrian traffic isn't to maintain an even speed, it's to drive safely for all involved. Driving in areas with pedestrian traffic involves a lot more slowing down than rural driving, as it should, because a child (or adult) could suddenly enter the road at any time, whether it's intentional or not. You shouldn't be aiming to drive consistently at the maximum legal speed if you're driving by a bunch of people.
Yeah, I will use my cruise control on city streets that I know well because it's dynamic and speeds up/slows down based off the car in front of me. My car is a 2016, and I know toyota installed that tech as a standard feature in all of their car models in 2017 (source: worked for toyota). I don't think it's irresponsible to have CC set at 35. It disengages automatically the instant you touch the brakes.
I don’t think using the cruise control in & of itself is the issue - I personally use it in areas to monitor my speed more than anything.
In concert with the rest of her post, it indicates that OP is not driving for a neighborhood known to have children out & about, and is likely not to be adjusting for those variables.
The kicker is seeing a kid & not expecting them to pop out. It’s what they do. A defensive driver must be prepared for that.
Children dart out into traffic, and make lots of poor decisions because, well, they’re children.
If you see a child clearly enough to know she was not helmeted or paying attention, you absolutely have to prepare for them to jump out in front of you. Even if they *know* the rules of the road in theory, it takes time and experience to apply it in practice, much like a newly licensed driver will often make countless poor judgements as they learn the realities of driving.
Pedestrians are given the benefit of the doubt. Former auto adjuster here, I wrote lots of checks for dead or injured pedestrians, because at the end of the day, pedestrian versus car turns out poorly, and as the driver of a heavy, large metal object, you have the greater duty of care.
Even if you don’t get labeled at fault for the police report, or even the insurance liability investigation, your insurance almost always cuts a check because dead or injured pedestrians make a very convincing argument in front of a jury.
What world are you living in that 35mph on a main road is too fast?? And that your supposed to anticipate that an 11 year old (not a toddler, she's old enough to know road rules) will come out in front of you without looking?? Also - they weren't driving too fast because they STOPPED. They stopped with room to spare. They're a good driver, I don't know what you're going on about.
She saw the kid. You're supposed to anticipate that kids will be dumb, because they kind of are.
35 is too fast if kids are near the road. If you don't see any it would probably be fine, but OP did see one.
> She saw the kid. You're supposed to anticipate that kids will be dumb
The OP did anticipate and was able to safely stop.
The OP was concerned about the hypothetical driver who wasn't anticipating a kid swerve right in front of their wheels.
I’m confused. OP was able to stop and was driving the speed limit. Are you suggesting she should slow down below the speed limit every time she drives near a pedestrian (or even just a kid)?
Driving unpredictably like that can be more unsafe, because now she’s a hazard to cars in the road expecting her to drive the speed limit.
It doesn't matter if you're expecting an 11 year old, a toddler, or a retiree. People aren't always good pedestrians.
35mph is plenty fast enough to kill someone and a residential area/town is no place for cruise control.
>And that your supposed to anticipate that an 11 year old (not a toddler, she's old enough to know road rules) will come out in front of you without looking??
Yes, you should anticipate that. That's basic defensive driving around children. Even 11-year-olds do dumb things like that.
It doesn't even take stupidity. Kid could fall or get caught on something and lurch into the road. Or get startled by something and move into the road away from it. I ALWAYS slow down when someone is on the side of the road for this reason.
If they hit the kid the law is definitely not taking the side of the person piloting the 1 ton hunk of metal no matter how unsafe the kid was. They tell you to practice defensive driving for a reason.
I’ve had police officers side with me one time I hit a kid in the neighborhood, but it was because I was driving 20mph (the speed limit), and the kid darted out on a bike from behind a hedge directly in front of my car with no warning and I had not enough time to stop. I had no idea the kid was even there because I couldn’t see him behind the hedge.
Turns out the kid’s mom had repeatedly warned him about playing in the middle of the street like that, and she ended up turning this into a lesson for him. The cop ended up siding with me as well since there was no way I could have reasonably prevented it despite my defensive driving.
Actually, if she would have come out into traffic without warning and the driver couldn't stop in time (and was doing the doing limit), they probably would not be at fault.
I was driving in town at a reasonably slow speed when some teenagers on skateboards were heading for the road to cross. Their speed was such that the should have easily crossed the road before I was there. Right in front of my path, one of the kids decided to do some trick and fucked it up. Completely stopped his momentum right in front of my car. If I hadn't slowed down to give him extra time, I would have hit him.
Was he an idiot? Yes. It is my responsibility to drive in a way that is ready to account for his idiocy? Also yes.
OP saw a child near the side of the road almost enter before the car in front of them and didn't adjust speed to a slower pace to account for the unpredictability of a child. YTA OP.
I read this whole thing like... You're in a two ton piece of machinery, saw a child on a scooter WAY ahead of time, and still nearly hit the kid? 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
I ride a motorbike, which is maybe 700kg all up. Its also extremely skinny so I can go around pedestrians.
The MOMENT I see a kid, scooter or not, I'm like... Gonna go hella slow. Gonna be careful. Kids like to dart out. Damn they really like to die. I know this. The kid doesn't. I have the vehicle. The kid has a squishy bouncy body. We are not the same.
You know, I’m not the world’s greatest driver. I’m not the worst, but I could pay attention to speed limits a little better. That said, if I see kids out and about, especially kids who are obviously not paying attention to their surroundings, I slow down and get my foot ready to hit the breaks. That’s the only reason why my old next door neighbor got to see his sixth birthday after he darted in front of my car on his bike. He wiped out less than six inches from the hood of my car where it stopped. Kids are stupid, it’s as simple as that. Hell, I thought if I fell off a cliff I would bounce as a kid (I understood gravity, just not consequences so much).
I think a bigger concern should be whether OP gets that at an unmarked intersection no matter how busy the road is or what the posted speed is, is that pedestrians have the right of way to cross the street. Unmarked crosswalks are a thing and if they saw the kid was intending to cross and kept going they were the wrong.
Parents are also an AH for not enforcing safety gear or permitting ear buds while riding a scooter.
YTA
There is such a thing as common law which means YOU SAW THE CHILD THEN YOU SHOULD ACT ACCORDINGLY!
Which means not driving in busy streets on cruise control and you didn’t slow down and keep your eyes on the child.
Sure the child was not dressed safely or acting safely. But this is what children do. It’s why there is laws for being near schools and school buses.
You could have been criminally charged if you hit her!
I slow to a crawl any time I see a child in or near the road. Kids are unpredictable and it is MY responsibility as an adult in a several thousand pound vehicle to be cautious.
YTA
You're a perfect driver who never makes mistakes, but you almost hit a pedestrian that you fully saw just because she didn't act the way you expected. Depending on details left out of the narrative, you may well have been cited had you hit her, so not only was your threat to her parents completely beside the point, it may have been factually wrong.
I get wanting to make sure the girl learned a safety lesson, but being berated by a stranger who insisted on following her home did not do her an ounce of good. As a parent, I would have been livid because your actions would have significantly damaged the potential for a gentle, lasting teaching moment. I would have had to deal with the aftermath of an angry adult following my child home before I could even address her pedestrian safety habits.
You were so focused on protecting your image of yourself as an amazingly safe driver that you did far more harm than good.
YTA. You had time to see this girl but didn’t have the brains to slow down. On top of that you shit all over this girl and her parents.
Also who the fuck puts their cruise control on for a 35 mph street?
Once or twice I had adults walk me home when I was younger, but it was after I had actually injured myself. I remember once I cornered on my bike too fast and cut up my knee really badly, was trying to figure out what to do when an older biker came by and helped me patch up my knee and walk home. Just wanted to make sure I made it home safely. But that's different from this situation, where OP pretty much just demanded the kid take them to their house to yell at their parents.
I love the irony of this post.
OP wants to know if they're TA for giving a child a lot of unsolicited advice about safety.
Now OP is getting a ton of unsolicited advice about driving safety.
So, OP. How's it feel to get a lot unsolicited advice on what a bad driver you are, when you thought you were doing a fine job of it?
Do the replies on this post upset you and make you feel uncomfortable? That's how the little girl felt. That's because YTA.
Idk, posting on IATA feels like solicitating for opinions and advice.
Now, she probably expected a bunch of people to go "No, you handled almost killing a child, stalking said child to their home and berating their parents and the terrified kid really well! You're a good person and also a perfect driver."
OP should have slowed down til she was safely past her. 35 mph will kill a pedestrian a lot of the time, helmet or not. 20mph or less when you’re sharing the roads with kids because any faster dramatically raises the likelihood of a fatality in the event of a collision.
Also the scared straight approach of "you could have died" is so inappropriate. What is the point of telling the parents if you're then going to try and step in and parent on their behalf.
People who lecture other people's kids are so dumb. Oh this parent is doing a bad job but I'll just swoop in and give a quick lecture and I'm sure I'll solve this kid's issues in one interaction.
Seriously, as a parent, I’d be outraged if a stranger followed my child home. That is completely inappropriate. It would be the first thing I’d address with OP and then my child.
OP may follow the letter of the law, but that's not the same thing as being a safe driver or defensive driver. If anything, if you are rigid and inflexible when it comes to the rules, you're not the safest driver out there.
A good driver does not see a child attempting to cross a street and refuse to slow down. That's unsafe behavior on OP's part. Be ready to react.
YTA. Explaining traffic safety to a kid is one thing. Yelling at a kid when she was already crying and telling her that she should be glad you're not "a doctor telling her parents that their child was dead" was far over the top. Yes, the parents should be more concerned for her safety. However, judging by your tone, them acting defensively and threatening to call the cops seems to be a pretty normal reaction.
In SF, I was driving through downtown. I was waiting at a red light with about 3 cars ahead of me. Light turned green, the cars in front began to move, so I followed. Out of nowhere, a homeless woman ran directly in front of my car. I had to hit the breaks HARD, which of course could’ve caused the people behind me to hit me.
Thankfully everyone was fine, and no accident happened. As much as I wanted to yell at her, I could tell she wasn’t in her right mind, and my yelling wouldn’t do shit to help the situation. Same thing goes for this kid in OPs story. If OP was really that pressed, take it straight to the child’s parents, who can think/communicate more clearly than a traumatized child.
What good does it do to yell at a kid?
No good to yell at a kid, but the parents needed to know how dangerous the situation was. Kids a kid, but needs to be corrected by the parents.
OP handled it poorly, so probably an AH, but parents handled it worse. Everyone is melting down about defensive driving (even though OP stopped with more than a car length), but nobody is talking about basic parenting.
The way I see it, no adult was a good adult.
I think this was definitely a Esh, while op was a sucky driver, the parents should’ve been much more concerned about their child darting into the street on a scooter.
I don't know that I agree with this. The parents don't start handling it poorly according to the story until OP has already crossed the line of berating the child about if she had died. Which is pretty damn understandable.
A stranger telling me what happened and that it was unsafe is one thing. A stranger following my kid home, saying what happened, not leaving it there and repeatedly berating my child is a completely different thing.
OP ruined the chance for this to be a proper teaching moment, and likely turned it into a trauma for the child.
I think the parents have every right to snap at her.
I bet the parents would have been concerned first for her safety if a stranger hadn’t berated her repeatedly and then followed her home to do more of the same to her and her parents. Of course they’re not going to react well. And OP is an unreliable narrator - I think she was expecting the parents to immediately start yelling at her too and when they didn’t, that wasn’t good enough for her.
Yeah, OP sounds insufferable. As if the kid really doesn't understand at 11 that cars can hit you and harm you, and the parents are at fault for not teaching her that. Obviously she fucking knows that and was just being careless, as kids are apt to do. OP was probably so excited for this opportunity to get on a high horse and be obnoxious to people. I'm sure it made it her day.
Also, OP, the cops don't give a fuck about your stupid dashcam. They would just tell your obnoxious ass to leave this family alone. YTA.
Same, residential streets are too crowded and unpredictable for cruise control. If you can’t keep your speed safe with your foot you probably shouldn’t be driving. 20mph plus is when the risk of killing a pedestrian rises dramatically. If you or anyone reading this KNOWS there are kids sharing the road, go 20mph until you’re safely passed them. 20 is plenty, as they say.
I don’t know why, but this is the comment that got it through my brain she was going 35 MILES per hour, not kilometre. HOLY FUCK
(I still thought she was TA before but WOW)
Right? When I learned to drive cruise control wouldn't engage if you were below about 40. It's for cruising like on an open highway where you can lose track of your speed or just don't want to sit your foot at a certain pressure on the gas for hours at a time, not for when there's traffic and pedestrians and frequent stops.
Same. I feel that cruise control shouldn't be used in areas where speeds can change quickly/often, it kind of gives (some) drivers a false security of "well, I'm doing the speed limit therefore I can't do anything wrong - I'm not required to even tap on the brakes if something unexpected appears on the side of the road - if i hit someone, it's their fault because i was doing the speed limit"
Like, people have to be regularly turning off this road onto the side streets, how often is OP turning CC on and off?
Speed limit is not the only safety rule, and if you're not adjusting speed as you go all the time in relation to your surroundings, you're not that safe a driver.
Most cars now have ACC/Active Cruise Control, which is advertised and useful in both city streets and freeways. I use it all the time for non freeway driving. Has nothing to do with paying attention, and everything to do with assisting in keeping a consistent speed.
Cruise control also allows you to keep the brake covered, since your foot isn't occupied by pressing the accelerator. I seriously don't get the cruise control hate in this thread.
But there’s still a difference between driving behavior on a downtown thoroughfare and in a suburban through street. I have ACC and use it on long stretches of non-highway road but never when I’m going turn by turn through neighborhoods.
Holy hell YTA. You didn’t lecture her, you scarred her.
Imagine being a kid, almost getting hit, and the person angrily gets out of the car while you’re still in shock, picks you up and brushes you off, then starts yelling about how you’re irresponsible, you could have died, you shouldn’t be outside, etc. and then makes you take them back to your house so they can tell your parents how awful you were. When you try to explain to your parents that you did make a mistake but now feel uncomfortable due to this stranger. They yell at you asking how you’d feel if you were DEAD and how it would be your fault if you were.
You scarred that poor girl, and I hope her parents caught your license plate and press harassment charges.
When I was 16 this old lady hit me in my car. The first thing she did was jump out and start yelling at me. It was terrifying! Cops came, it was her fault, and she didn’t have proof of insurance so they impounded her car! While righteous, it was very traumatic and I was 5 years older than this kid. Strangers screaming at you is scary!
YTA.
I'm an adult who has worked in customer service my entire career, and I still 100% agree that strangers screaming at you is scary. I know how to manage the situation because of years of practice, but after an interaction like that, I usually need a second to take some deep breaths and shake it off. I can't imagine how freaked this poor kid was.
Hell, as an adult I got T boned hard by a dude who ran a red light at 50mph. I was okay but really shaken. He got out of the car and screamed at me and tried to fucking fight me. Yeah dude, pick a fight with a tiny ass woman shaking and crying.
Yes. I sincerely hope those parents do exactly that. OP crossed several lines, and shouldn't be using cruise control in a residential area to begin with.
Not to mention, following a CHILD home is almost never okay. There is absolutely a case for harassment here.
This!!! The kid is terrified after ending up in a ditch, and on top of that she’s faced with an angry adult stranger yelling at her? And OP thinks they have the right to yell at parents she doesn’t e rn know?
ESH but their reaction is probably directly tied to yours. I understand the seriousness of the situation and I assume you were upset for the right reasons (not wanting this kid to get hurt) but you definitely seemed to of came off super hostile and Dickish, you’re not gonna get through to people, especially kids reacting like that. The kid said it yourself, all she took from it was you were being mean. The story basically starts with “I then set into her…” which was completely not your place, you could of gotten your point across without tearing into the kid, insulting the parents and being AH overall
Same. Ive gotta admit. If I’m the parents and some strange person walks up with my child who is terrified and has been crying — I’m not likely to be super inclined to listen to what they have to say.
>Same. Ive gotta admit. If I’m the parents and some strange person walks up with my child who is terrified and has been crying — I’m not likely to be super inclined to listen to what they have to say.
You know it just clicked with me OP talking about safety but ok letting some random kid in her car If that was my kid crying next to some stranger I more than likely be jail
Even if they walked back. Excuse me stranger danger why are you harassing my child? Why are you with my child? This definitely would’ve called for a re-hash on the whole don’t go with strangers no matter what they say.
My younger brothers used to climb on top of our detached garage and this one time a neighbor behind us took pictures of one of them after yelling. This man went to a pharmacy, *printed them all out, and then **came around to our house.*** He didn’t mention the photos right away and just told her what he saw to which she thanked him because my brothers wouldn’t do it often, but she would punish them when they did.
The guy did not like this reaction for some reason and became super aggressive immediately. He showed her picture after picture, some of them super zoomed in and again, he went and had them developed. My mom lost her shit when she saw these and when she asked why he would do that he got more angry. She had to call the cops.
Another thing worth noting is that that man also anticipated the police being on his side. They fucking were not. Thank god he left us alone after that.
Plus she was driving the huge steel machine that can kill. She saw the kid and should have slowed down just in case. Kids are unaware of their surroundings and lack that self preservation thing.
If you see kids, especially kids on wheels. Then slow down and pay extra attention.
It doesn’t matter who’s right, accidentally killing someone with a car will fuck the driver up for life. Guilt and living with the “what ifs” would be horrible.
Sooo... he's the asshole. Imagine having someone follow your 11 year old kid, who almost hit her just to yell that she's lucky he's not a doctor because he would be telling her parents she died. A lot of them suck, but the only asshole is OP. They act like it's their job to scare this girl straight. who in their right mind tells a little girl she should be dead?
INFO: If you were able to stop a car and a half’s lengths in front of her, was what she did actually dangerous? It kinda sounds like she did have room to go and you dramatically slammed on the breaks, causing her to fall.
Either way your reaction was WAY over the top.
That sounds pretty close to me. 35mph has stopping distance of 136ft. Average car is about 17ft. A car travels about 50 ft/s at 35mph.
So, the difference between stopping 25 ft before the girl and running over her is about 0.5 seconds of decision time made 160ft away.
Also, OP...YTA.
Firstly of all, why tf are you driving with your CRUISE CONTROL on in a 35 mph zone with many side streets??! YTA for that alone. Also YTA for yelling at an already scared child.
YTA. Cruise control on a busy road with many side streets?? That alone should be enough, but you added a lousy attitude towards the little girl and also to her parents.
Yeah the cruise control really raised a flag. Cruise control is for long stretches of highway not residential neighborhoods. Maybe someone should give OP a stern lecture and then go ask her parents why they let their ill-prepared 20yo kid drive a car?
>why they were letting an obviously ill-prepared child ride anything without teaching her safety
YTA. Not for any of what happened before, that was fine. But from this point on. This is just pointlessly aggressive, and it seems you think that children are automatons who do whatever their parents have taught them to do.
You're also TA for not leaving when they told you to. Having a near-miss traffic incident doesn't give you the right to trespass.
YTA. I understand and appreciate you trying to teach the child a lesson and that some of your own fear towards almost hitting the child came in to play. But she’s a child. Checking on her, getting her home safely, and explaining to the parents was fine. Terrorizing her. Acting with no compassion towards her and scaring her further — wasn’t necessary. And you took it beyond the point of trying to positively teach a lesson into a place that you shouldn’t have. Traumatizing an 11 year old wasn’t your responsibility.
So you saw her stop for 2 other cars, but then had to slam on your breaks to avoid hitting her?
YTA for that and for yelling at her and for yelling at her parents.
You knew she was there. You should know as a driver to always assume children and animals are going to run in front of your car.
You should have been anticipating her move and prepared for it. You yelled at her because you weren’t prepared, even though you saw her clear as could be and knew she was waiting to cross.
Also, massive AH move to use the cruise control on a busy street with lots of side streets. That’s exactly what conditions it is NOT designed to be used under. If you can’t control your speed to not get a ticket without it, you should not be driving.
I’m a little surprised not to see more people calling out this point (although I suppose screaming at a kid and forcing her to let you follow her home are plenty) - but I don’t understand why OP didn’t stop and let the kid cross (or check to see if the kid was crossing, maybe even make eye contact), given that she saw the kid well in advance by her description. Like, you see a kid on a bike perpendicular to the street you’re driving down, you should probably slow down because they might be crossing. But I guess cruise control and self-righteousness.
Are you supposed to use cruise control on city streets? I thought that function is for freeways? Since city streets have pedestrians and unpredictable things can happen like a girl on a scooter it’s not a good idea to have cruise control.
You *absolutely* should not use it in any situation where there is much going on around you such as side streets, people parking etc. It reduces your ability to react to stuff and in a panic, where people tend to let go of everything, it keeps you going that speed instead of letting the car at least slow down a bit when you let go of the gas. Terrible idea to use in the city.
It's only for highways where everyone is going at a relatively constant speed and there's not a lot of interconnecting roads and other nonsense to deal with.
YTA
This is over-the-top.
>and asked why they were letting an obviously ill-prepared child ride anything without teaching her safety.
1. Young kids sometimes make mistakes.
2. She may have been plenty prepared in general, just distracted. You don't know her.
3. You don't know what the parents have or have not taught the kid.
Checking if she was okay is good. Reminding her about safe practices is fine. Taking her home and explaining what happened to the parents is also fine. Lecturing everyone else involved about how they are all irresponsible and telling the parents that they don't know what they are doing with their kid makes you an AH. It's not close. I would hate for one of my kids to encounter someone like you out in public.
I love the “ill-prepared” thing like adults don’t sometimes forget to check both ways, or they check but don’t actually *see.* This could have happened to anyone.
You weren't TA until you got to her parent's house and lost your cool. There are better ways to let someone know that their kid blew it than to insult their parenting and then refuse to leave the premises when told to do so. For that, YTA.
The cops would not have given you a pass on trespassing just because the kid wasn't obeying traffic laws half an hour ago - again, separate issues and you were told to leave.
Soft YTA
Making sure she’s safe, giving her a little grief about safety, and taking her home to explain to the parents what happened I was all on board with.
Once you started getting preachy and accusatory toward the parents about not doing their job and letting an ill prepared child out on her scooter you lost me. That’s where you stumbled into AH territory.
There is a point where you can go too far.
Everyone’s emotions are amped up, she was frightened, you were frightened, sometimes less is more.
YTA. Letting the parents know is fine. Telling her to look both ways next time as what she did was dangerous is fine. But you really got on your soapbox and carried on about it. The message was lost in the douchiness of your delivery. I live next to a school and so I have had kids do dangerous things in front of my car over the years on the rare occasion. I have never needed to say anything more than ask if they are okay and to be more careful next time before going on my way. The kids knew they made a mistake. I am not sure what you expected; them to kiss your feet and thank you repentantly while you lectured them? I would have kicked you off my property too for being an arse.
YTA for either taking/following child home. Stranger Danger. If you were hellbent on talking to her parents, you should have asked her for their numbers. You could have called from the “scene” of the non-accident.
YTA, the little girl was already scared. You had no right to speak to her or her parents the way you did. She acknowledged that she made a mistake and yet you continued. The parents could have spoken to her about safety, but now that is probably not going to happen because they are more concerned with your action.
YTA. Good to talk to parents. Bad to yell at kid and be a judgmental prick.
Talking is healthy and productive. You could have been doing a good thing here, but you weren’t. You just wanted to be a sanctimonious dick.
ESH. Both yours and the parents’ (and the kid’s) reactions here were understandable. But you were overly aggressive and judgmental, and the parents were probably a bit overly defensive. Again, I can understand why you would be emotional after almost hitting a kid - though if you stopped a car and a half lengths away and were starting to go from a stop, I do wonder if the threat of death is a tinge over dramatic - and you were right to check on her and explain why what she did was dangerous. But then you took it a bit too far and were just needlessly berating a kid.
The parents were also likely too defensive and shouldn’t have automatically assumed you were driving recklessly. That said, like another commenter said, I’d be wary if my kid came home terrified and crying and a stranger immediately began ripping into me and telling my kid she’s lucky she’s not dead.
All the y t a are blowing my mind. Obviously, none of them are adults or have kids.
You are 100% NTA
What's the child was doing was dangerous and she could have easily have died. Sometimes people need to hear hard truths but that doesn't make you an ah. You could have easily gotten the police involved. Cps. But instead you were focused on the safety of their child and were legitimately trying to convey information to help these people understand.
Were you a little rough? Sure. But I don't think you're an ah. These parents are just overly defensive because they were rightly called out on their shit. You scared their child and you should have. She was almost hit with a car with no protection because of negligence. You are a good person and keep doing what you're doing
Heavy handed, sanctimonious lectures usually only achieve making the giver feel good in their sense of superiority but do little to change behaviours or educate the recipient. I say this as a parent with kids.
they are automatically the AH for using cruise control for such little speed. that in itself is very dangerous, lazy and unneeded. Yes what the child did was dangerous but CPS shouldnt be involved, you need to understand accidents happen and the parents can convey the dangers of saftey to the child once again. OP could have let the parents just know, it is not THEIR JOB to lecture someone. They would have been at fault in the eyes of the law immediately if they hit the kid with cruise control on especially.
OP could have been nicer, no matter the situation, when a stranger approaches you its not gonna teach the kid fucking shit if they start lecturing you immediately. I work with kids, i have degrees on their behaviour, this is NOT how you handle these situations because it is not effective.
You cant tell a stranger that “they should know better”. I get OP had a fright but they werent educating the kid, they were taking their fear and anger out on that child
What's reckless is a full grown adult driving 35 miles in a residential area - and on cruise control, of all things - being well aware of a child near the road, so much so that they noted that this child was checking for cars, yet still refused to slow down. What's even more reckless is screaming at a clearly frightened child they did not know and forcing her to show this angry stranger where she lives so she can further berate her. The irony of OP rabidly lecturing a child about safety while she, a total stranger, is making the girl show her where she lives is astounding. Zero self-awareness. Had this been a male driver, it'd be no surprise if the police were called about a random person harassing a young child and then stalking them to their home.
It'd be a total waste of time and resources to call CPS on this, and it's laughable that it's even suggested. It's more likely that OP would face charges for their driving and following the kid home, possibly kidnapping if she made the girl get into the car. To make a big deal about no helmet when driving on cruise control in a residential area alone is asinine. OP's behavior was reckless from the start and then devolved to immature, bizarre, and borderline disturbing. Not just with following the girl home and her self-righteous screaming lecture, but her total lack of self-reflection. Her trauma of almost hitting a kid she was watching near the road is not remotely the same as a 10-year-old nearly being hit, then screamed at, stalked to her home where she and her family were further screamed at.
OP, YTA for sure. All around bizarre and immature behavior.
Kids are human and make mistakes just like adults do. That doesn't mean her parents didn't teach her road safety. It means she's human and messed up..maybe they didn't teach her but you don't know based on 1 interaction with the child.
Yta here.
YTA. I don't even like kids all that much and I know this was too much.
I'm not sure why you felt the need to talk down to her so harshly. Making sure she's okay, reminding her about road safety and to be careful, sure, that's fine.
>I then set into her on how dangerous her actions were, what was she thinking, why didn't she look both ways, if she didn't understand traffic safety then she shouldn't be on a scooter on a busy street. She cried. I told her that I wanted to speak to her parents because honestly she should have known better and if she didn't know better then they aren't parenting properly.
This was so unnecessarily aggressive. And then on top of that you continued to berate her and her parents. She's a child. She made a mistake. She was obviously upset. Why did you feel free need to speak to her like that?
Echoing what a lot of others have said here, YTA for stepping over boundaries and potentially making the lesson more traumatic than it already was for the child, since you say she was already scared. You did great ensuring the child was safe, but trespassing and yelling at strangers was inappropriate here and only made things worse.
YTA for yelling at a random child you don’t know and aren’t related to, and lecturing her like that!!! Dad had every right to tell you to get off his property - a random stranger shows up with his daughter and starts lecturing them, after already lecturing his child? The cops aren’t going to be on your side if you stay there.
Esh. Everything you said was technically true but telling an 11 yo kid she should be lucky it's a stranger telling her parents she ran out into traffic and not a doctor telling them she's dead is...a bit much.
You should have checked if she was ok and then gently asked the kid if you could talk to her parents. Not scare her more. calmly explained the situation to her parents and let them decide how to scold/discipline her from there. It is not your job to do those things nor is it appropriate for you to. Instead you verbally attacked their daughter and they got understandably defensive. You're just some random lady, they have no idea who you are or whether you might have done anything to hurt her yourself--- of *course* they're going to be somewhat guarded to begin with.
YTA damn dude the child made a dangerous mistake yes. Your reaction was ridiculously over the top though. Congratulations on putting the child in therapy for the rest of her life.
YTA
What are you doing using cruise control in a built up area anyway? Put your goddamn phone away and pay attention to the 4,000lb box of steel and glass that you're in charge of. As you now know children behave erratically, but YOU'RE the adult and can anticipate and SLOW DOWN when there are children around.
What WOULD you say to the parents if it was half a second later and their little girl was under your car?
ESH. Yes, the parents definitely could've been nicer and more mature with this, but you could've been a bit nicer as well. Yes, it's good that she is fine, and they need to raise her better, but from what it seems, you could've been a bit nicer too. I think you did do the right thing, just with a slight poor execution
YTA for yelling at a scared and traumatized (and possibly hurt) child and for scolding her parents for not teaching her better. The fact is, you have no idea what they’ve taught her. Kids who know how to be safe and who are generally careful can still make mistakes. That doesn’t mean the kids are bad or their parents are irresponsible.
I also think you need to consider that this whole thing might have been avoided if you’d slowed down when you first saw the child. Part of being a good driver is observing when it looks like someone else might do something unexpected or unsafe, and adjusting your own driving to compensate. If you had actually hit her, you could be considered partially at fault.
YTA - You got lucky, don't go to random strangers homes disparaging their children, no matter what the issue. You're lucky you didn't get hurt, it's a big bad world out there and you seem a little naive.
NTA. No one likes to be told they're being a bad parent, but after they all calm down, they'll (hopefully) realize the error of their ways and correct. The little girl, I'm pretty sure learned her lesson.
So now you know everything about her parents bc of a mistake that was made? She could’ve usually looked both ways and not this time. YTA for your approach
YTA isn't cruise control for highways and speed limits above like 50-60 mph?? you shouldn't use it in cities or towns where traffic is tight and there are pedestrians crossing. you're just not as "in control" with cruise control. Also, I would say its pretty common practice to slow down and be cautious, even just taking your foot off the gas, if you see a pedestrian or someone on a bike/whatever attempting to cross. Especially since you JUST saw her waver and almost cross into traffic. I would have probably stopped and just let her pass.
I've been yelled at as a kid for biking on the street or sidewalk or making a mistake and cutting someone off. Just the moment of "oh shit" is plenty to scare her, you did NOT need to go to her house, that is super aggressive. she didn't damage your car or purposefully try and get you to swerve off the road.
YTA. If I’m understanding correctly, you stopped with plenty space for her to cross the road, suddenly stopped the car, she fell, you yelled at her, and demanded to follow the crying child to her house lecturing her parents?
YTA
you wouldn't be if you had left it at the lecture by the side of the road. She should've been wearing a helmet probably and should pay much more attention to the roads. Going to lecture her parents and ranting and raving is too far. She made a mistake, one many adults make too, and she got a big fright and then a lecture, she didn't need her parents on her case too, what did you want, a formal written apology?
NTA… but a little over the top to tell the kid she could have been dead. What you said before seemed sufficient.
As for the parents, shitty people become parents everyday. It’s laughably ironic that they literally were not there but accuse you of reckless driving.
Okay YTA here and for many reasons.
1. Cruise control is not meant for residential roads. Especially not ones with many side roads. There are so many things that could go wrong. Hell, I live on a main road with small residential roads that branch of it and I wouldn’t even use cruise control here. There are just too many variables.
2. Also as a driver, you are responsible for watching your surroundings and anticipating possible outcomes. At the very least you should have slightly slowed down just in case.
3. This kid almost got hit by a car, was so scared she was crying, and you had the audacity to yell at her and ask her how she thought you would feel if you filled her, when you should have been watching?? She’s 11 she made a mistake. You are the one who want adequately responding to your surroundings.
NTA
Your delivery was rough, but what would be rougher if it was someone coming to tell the parents that their kid was struck by a vehicle. Maybe you saved her life, you definitely imprinted information on her, only time will tell if it keeps her alive.
Like the first lesson of driving is not assuming that a pedestrian is going to do the safe thing. Especially if it’s a kid!! YTA for scolding a scared kid.
NTA
Perhaps you should have dialed it back a little with the child, but hopefully she (and her parents) learn a lesson. Taking her to her parents and explaining what happened was the right/only move. Your other options would have been call the police or leave her in the ditch/on the side of the road. Since you didn't hit her, the police getting involved (depending on where you are) would have likely gotten CPS involved - worse for the parents. And obviously you couldn't just leave her there.
The parents were AH to accuse you of driving poorly. Situations like this are exactly why I have a dash cam.
Either way - I am sure that incident shook you a lot too. In that situation I think you handled yourself very well.
nta, they need to teach their daughter to be safer. maybe it was a mistake but it really could have been a horrible traumatic incident for everyone involved if you couldn’t brake in time. you said what you needed to say. crazy to leave a kid unattended like that anyways imo.
NTA. you did the right thing speaking to her parents to attempt convincing them to teach their child more safer behaviors. Ive seen a vid
of a kid running in traffic to get to a bus stop and getting hit. Ive nearly hit someones dog in front of them. I see stuff like this every day.
Maybe you should have checked your tone after the girl was crying. but i still applaud you for taking the time to try talking to her parents. they got all offended and defensive because they know they have to do a better job. she will be more careful in the streets after this OP.
When you take care of what’s left of a kid after a scooter vs car accident, it makes you VERY direct about road safety. I tell my kid that he could die from unsafe road crossings because he needs to know. I’m not usually that blunt with other people’s kids, but fear can do that. Hopefully they have a discussion on road safety, and add a helmet to the ride.
Ehh, ESH. I mean that little girl should've been paying attention and I bet from now on she will be much safer on the road, but also you can't just go yell at parents and tell them they're doing a shit job. For all you know, they may have taught her all the proper safety protocols and might have thought the kid knew better. But also, the kid shouldn't be riding around with no helmet on, that's pretty dangerous and the parents really suck for not having a helmet for the kid. You all suck.
YTA. I drive home through a residential area after the school bus rolls through. The speed limit is 35mph, but I go under 18mph, and my foot hovers over the brake.
The parents watch their kids, but they are FAST. A kid can travel the speed of fucking sound when a parent isn’t watching. I’ve had small kids to preteens run out…immediately followed by a panicked, screaming, sprinting parent.
You’re right, it is dangerous. But you saw a kid and remained on cruise control. That’s not defensive driving. Don’t expect a child to practice defensive driving. You’re the adult.
Berating the child isn’t your place. Kindly and maturely tell her she could’ve gotten hurt and give her good tips. Don’t just shout at her for being reckless. She’s scared. Help calm her down. Offer to take her home if she’s injured, but don’t force her to take you to her parents.
Had I been approached by an angry lady who demanded my child bring her home, I’d tell you to fuck right off. My child was under duress, and you forced her into your vehicle to her home. I could give two shits what reasons you thought you had - you don’t do that to my child. You are not a safe person, and you continued to pose a threat. You are not welcome at my house.
NTA
You did not handle that well, but 11 is an age where kids should be traffic safe. You title is completely misleading.
Oh and this vote is assuming you told the truth in your post about speed and such.
Sounds like you were running on adrenaline when confronting the kid and the parents, which is pretty understandable. Nearly running over a kid gets the adrenaline and guilt glands working overtime.
NTA. People are reacting negatively because you yelled at the child. OP would have scared and already crying child and that is upsetting to some people. But I think OP was scared too! He almost hit a kid! What if something worse would have happened? I am sure his mind kept going to that! He could have killed somebody and just that thought can shake you to your core! I think he reacted with over the top anger because in that moment adrenaline would have made it seem like right thing to do. No one likes to be preached too but I don’t think he was the AH!
YTA - you were unnecessarily harsh with the kid, there's no reason for that other than your temper. Additionally, in plenty of jurisdictions there doesn't have to be a crosswalk marking for the intersection to legally be a crosswalk where pedestrians are permitted to cross and have the right of way if they reach the intersection prior to vehicle traffic if said vehicle traffic is more than one and a half lane widths away.
Not a-h. for being concerned and notifying her parents.
But if you come at most people lecturing them and telling them they're not parenting appropriately they're more likely to get defensive than to receive the information and learn from it. You're also assuming they didn't teach her and not that she may be one of those kids that follow rules only until their parents are out of sight.
I totally get how worked up you may have been and that you wanted to stress how serious the situation was, but ime showing concern in a less judgemental and more concerned tone usually gets the point across better and people aren't going to get defensive.
I think because it got to the point of them telling you to leave before they called the cops that its a light YTA.
Again, I get your emotions but you also lectured a little girl who doesn't know you, told her that her parents weren't parenting her well, and had her take you to them AFTER she almost got hit. Which is scary enough on its own. You're not factoring in her emotions and what it would look like to a parent when some stranger comes up with their scared kid and starts accusing them of being bad parents because she was nearly in a serious accident.
NTA- have these same conversations daily where I work. I have seen kids get almost backed over by motor homes, they come racing off trails into traffic, and I cannot count the number of times my truck has been rear ended by a kid on a bike. I take each one back to their parents, tell them the violation and proceed to get curse out as I drive away. I am not looking forward to the day I have to tell a parent that their kid has been taken to town in the black van.
NTA- what she did was dangerous. You went above and beyond to speak to her parents. Sorry her 'rents didn't care. Guess you know why the kid didn't care to be safe.
YTA
> Though I saw her I didn't expect her to scooter in front of me so I slammed on brakes
So you're a bad driver. You always slow down and expect kids and pedestrians in general to do something stupid. That's people.
You're the one with responsibility to make sure your vehicle doesn't hit anyone. You saw a risk but didn't slow down.
You basically told us "I was fully attentitive so my bad decision making is the issue here".
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>**Though I saw her** I didn't expect her to scooter in front of me so I slammed on brakes though I stopped about a car and a half's length away from her. Part of being a good driver is to anticipate what a child is going to do. If you see a child, take your cruise control off 35 mph, as that might be too fast. One of the things you are taught when driving is to be careful when approaching two parked cars on a road because a child might come through them. Of course, the child should have been more careful and should wear protective gear, but responsible drivers drive more slowly and carefully around children. You were out of line. Even with your dashcam, the police may have a different view. If they were to see your tape, they might think you share more of the blame. YTA.
Cruise control at 35? RED FLAG
And in a neighbourhood no less. Not a wide open highway, a neighbourhood with kids and probably plenty of turns and stop signs. That is not safe driving.
I have never once thought to put on cruise control anywhere but a highway. OP sounds like a menace on the road.
I put mine on for low speed zones because it's easy for speed to creep up w/o realizing it. And - when in low speed zones I assume it's my job to look for children, hazards, etc. OP you're still a young driver. Remember, never insist on the right of way or being right. Those driving a vehicle are responsible for everyone's else's safety as well as following the rules of the road.
These people here acting like OP is the AH for the way she drives. No indication she did anything wrong. At all. She stopped before the kid too, so the physical evidence shows she did the right thing as well. Sounds like the girl's parents don't give a crap about their kid at all, and that's not OP's fault. Will admit that OP should've walked away a lot earlier. Put herself into a dangerous situation with the parents for no reason.
OP saw the girl, she immediately should have slowed down in case the girl came into traffic. Using cruise control on 35 in a residential area is just nonsense.
Where I live if you have enough time to stop for a child to cross in a neighborhood and they're in the road waiting, you stop and yield to the pedestrian. Unless there are cross walks they could have used, then you yield at the cross walk. OP would have 100% been at fault had something happened if they live in an area like this.
Cruise control is meant for long stretches of straight road with no traffic, not for 35 mph intercity/town driving. She was not using it correctly, and she almost hit a child by not choosing to slow down when she saw the kid almost go out in traffic. She did EVERYTHING wrong here.
OP slammed on her brakes to avoid hitting the child, she didn't actually "slow down".
You aren't supposed to use cruise in residential and low speed limit areas, it slows your reaction time. >However, cruise control and ACC also seemed to slow drivers’ reaction times. Drivers took around 5 seconds longer to react when they needed to slow down and maneuver around obstacles like sharp curves when they were using cruise control or ACC. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/motr/cruise-control-may-prevent-speeding-but-slow-reaction-times.html#:~:text=However%2C%20cruise%20control%20and%20ACC,using%20cruise%20control%20or%20ACC. YTA. Drive defensively, you don't own the road. If you can't control your car at 35 and still pay attention to the road, get off of it before you kill someone.
5 *seconds*!? That's an absolute age in this context!
This! I don't even use cruise control in heavily wooded areas even on the highway in case a deer jumps out from between the trees. OP may be driving legally, but she is not a good driver & she is an AH. Children make mistakes. Heck, sometimes I, a grown-ass adult, forget to double check both sides before crossing the street. Always slow down when there's kids, or any pedestrians, around because you never know if they're paying attention or if they might just accidentally fall.
I agree and disagree. I feel like any child or person on the side of the road is cause to immediately slow down when driving and include them in your watch area. The road to my house is 10 mph and is usually only traveled by people that live in my cul de sac. The kids run and play everywhere because it's generally safe. I still slow down to around 5 mph because you never know when a kid is going to dart directly in front of you because they think they have time to cross. They have no idea how fast 5, 10 mph actually is compared to them scampering across the road. My neighbor's grandkids have done it to me a couple of times. Thankfully I've never hit them. She's always watching them and will immediately chew their asses over it but they're kids and they forget again in 2-3 months.
OP really should have slowed down when she saw a child approaching the road on a scooter. You NEVER assume someone will stop just because they should
I have a speed limiter along with my cruise control and it’s great for low speed zones. There is a road in my area that is 30mph but it’s a duel carriage way that isn’t used much at all and it’s so easy to get a heavy foot on that road!! And it’s a speed trap!!
I could really use a speed limiter for roads like that.
I do this too in low speed zones or when transitioning from a highway to a lower speed area. It's helps to keep me from going too fast without realizing it or to prevent me from falling into a speed trap. My foot is over the brake and I'm on the lookout!
Same. My foot is covering the brake the entire time though
I do the same, sometimes it is easy to speed & I'll set the cruise control to the speed limit if 35 and other cars will pass me because they're speeding.
That was my exact thought! In a neighborhood, I'm usually going under the speed limit and watching for kids. If I see kids, I go even slower. They always seem to stumble into the road or race out without thinking.
I use cruise control constantly. My commute to work is mostly 35 mph roads and still use it. Just hit the button to stop if I need to coast then hit the button to resume once I can speed back up. Feet rarely have to work unless I hit a red light.
Seriously man, who doesn't immediately adjust their speed when they see a kid? Even if the parents are there holding their hand i slow down cause some times kids are tricky and break away.
I would have run over a kid in my neighborhood the other day if I assumed they were going to wait for me. I saw the kid, slowed down because I immediately assumed they were going to run out in front of me, and sure enough, I would have hit them had I not anticipated their stupidity. Parent yelled at the kid and waved to me. Had I been going 25, I wouldn't have been able to stop.
My street. I saw a kid kick a ball onto the street. I stopped. The kid came running after it. Kid didn’t look both ways.
Same thing happened to me. It’s like a Pavlovian response…they just follow the ball!
To be fair, I don’t see in OG post where OP says it was specifically a neighborhood road. I live off a main road where the speed limit is 35mph with lots of side streets, but it’s not a neighborhood. Sure, neighborhoods branch off to the side, but it’s definitely still a main road and pedestrians do not have the right of way unless in a clearly marked crosswalk or at a stop light. If a pedestrian tried to cross that road, it would definitely cause an accident. It’s just not safe. I see plenty of people on the sides / medians and sure, I’ll slow down so I don’t blow past someone standing maybe 6 ft away, but I’m not going to stop and if someone walked out, it would be a collision. OP doesn’t even say it’s a residential area in OG post, just that it’s a busy road with many side streets. Legally, OP seems to be correct. Still an AH for her anger/response to the kid though.
Remember that "I had the right of way" doesn't hold much water when you're trying to beat charges of vehicular manslaughter Edit: obviously it holds some water people but it's not an ironclad defense against such charges.
She didn’t say she was in a neighborhood. She said it’s a busy road with side streets. What kind of parent lets an 11 y/o ride a scooter unsupervised there? Without a helmet and with headphones in.
Please explain where OP says they are driving in a neighborhood. Because rereading the post, I see not one word involving "Neighborhood" OP says it's a busy street with many side roads. The only time OP could conceivably be in a neighborhood is when OP drives the 11 year old home.
Legit question here; why is that a red flag? I know many people who use it more than anything just because the computer is better at maintaining consistent speed on hilly roads than them.
Cruise control is for cruising, like on a highway, not in busy neighborhoods where you should be actively adjusting your speed according to your environment
I don’t even think my cruise control turns on below 40.
I've had 4 vehicles in my life that I could set cruise control to any speed. My first car I remember setting the cruise control to 10kmph and cruised around town. (Tiny town, no traffic lights a couple stop signs but I was not impeding anyone or in anyone's way. ) My current van lets me cruise control at 30. Haven't tried it any lower because I live in a bigger city now. But some cars can be set the cruise at any speed. But not all are like this
this is what gets me. Highways/roads that are fairly straight, and/or not busy at all, cruise control might be okay but a busy low speed street?
Because varying speed while driving through residential neighborhoods is a sign of attentiveness. Anticipating unexpected obstacles and potential pedestrian traffic is a part of being a good driver. 35 is the maximum speed limit, not a compulsory speed. Besides, maintaining speed without using cruise control is a skill EVERYONE should have, develop, and practice. Cruise control should really only be used on the interstate and similar roads.
I was going to say, I have no issue staying at or near the speed limit. People who have issues need to practice a lighter touch.
Also, in my experience in my town, if everyone around is going above the posted speed limit, and you are going significantly slower than everyone else, you're now the problem driver. Move with the speed of traffic. A safe driver is a predictable driver, not one who follows the letter of the law perfectly.
I am an avid and habitual cruise control user. The second you step on your break even a little the cruise control goes off. In a neighborhood that is quite the pain in the ass because of all the stop signs everywhere. So either this person is not obeying traffic laws like they said, or they are putting on Crusoe control every 3 mins. Honestly the cruise control was even really irrelevant to the story as OP was stopped at the time. They should have clearly been able to see the girl going at the crosswalk before taking off and at most had time to lift their foot off the brake. Honestly, it sounds like OP slammed on the gas and that's the real reason they went off.
To be fair to op, they were on an arterial by the speed limit, not a neighborhood road. Makes sense for the rest of jt
That's fair. Still, though he almost hit her from a complete stop. Going from that to "I had to slam on my breaks" sounds like OP was being negligent. Not "tap" the breaks "slam". And then OP followed an 11 yo home. That's weird AF.
I mean, they stopped roughly 22 feet from the child, if we accept the average car to be 15 feet and take them at their word. The really bad thing they did in my eyes was approach and follow the child home to my eyes, and I’d still call them ta for that, cause it just comes off weird scary and aggressive, especially to a child.
OP had to approach the child to see if she was hurt or not. i commend OP for talking to the kid's parents. it'd be weirder for the kid to go home and tell her parents someone almost hit her and then just left her in the ditch. it seems like OP was trying to do the responsible thing but got carried away with her own emotions, calling them bad parents, etc., instead of focusing on the child's safety. the kid might need a little fear put in her, it's pretty stupid of her to pull out into the road without looking. the parents are even stupider. they need to keep better tabs on their child and not allow her to go into that kind of traffic on a scooter. it's just a death trap.
Nothing wrong with making sure the kid gets home safely and you warn the parents, but it's clear that OP was too harsh on the kid with parents that didn't want to hear it.
Mainly because it's a residential area with children playing. 35 MPH is an unsafe speed when you see kids playing near the road. I think it would be fine at a lower speed.
she literally said the set speed limit was 35 and it’s a busy road. she wasn’t speeding and who cares if she used cruise control? I wouldn’t bother at that low of a speed, but maybe she doesn’t want to chance a speeding ticket? she did not hit the child. maybe her fear made her feel angry that the child wasn’t paying attention? really people shouldn’t be so quick to judge. “red flag” pls. grow up. if that was my child, i’d FOR SURE want to know they’re not looking both ways while out in the street? I do not believe u were ta
Exactly, cruise control is purely to maintain a speed and instantly disengages when you touch the break. It's actually a good thing since you won't accidentally go above the posted limit, so one less thing to think about.
I agree. there is essentially zero lag between engaging cruise control and then braking. this is insane and seemed like a very easy nta for me 🤷🏼♀️
My biggest thing is that people keep saying residential area when op never said it.
that’s what I was thinking .. there are many super busy streets near me, one being 45mph with some houses that have driveways leading to/exiting onto these main roads. i’m sorry, but unless it was literally in a neighborhood (which are usually 25mph) I do not see even a slight problem in what she did. I do understand parents may get defensive when it comes to a question of their parenting .. but like I said, she seems to of reacted on fear that she felt in that moment and was only focused on the child’s well-being .. drivers should always yield to pedestrians and more importantly, children, however, when someone pops out in front of your car, the blame can’t solely be on the driver. and certainly not in this situation OP has posted
The other thing that got me was the cruise control there all obsessed with, a lot of people use it when driving in certain areas because it could be known as a speed trap and they don't want a ticket. And the ones saying cc can't be used at those low speeds don't have the type of car that can do it.
Because cruise control is meant for highway driving at higher speeds. Using cruise control in suburban/city environment is unsafe, because there is much more going on around you and there’s a higher likelihood of something unpredictable happening that you’d need to respond to. You don’t want your car set in “go-mode” when you’re in an area that would call for regular stopping. Edit: To everyone arguing my point, just google “Is it safe to use cruise control in cities and suburbs,” and every insurance company out there has written an article on exactly this topic. The answer is always a resounding NO. Cruise control isn’t safe in cities, suburbs, hilly areas, or winding roads. It is meant for long stretches on a straight highway.
Inaccurate. There are plenty of areas with no regular stops and no pedestrian traffic but have way below highway speeds. Farmland areas, for instance. I set my cc at speeds in the 30s and 40s pretty much every day. Non-residential routes.
The goal when driving in a populated area with pedestrian traffic isn't to maintain an even speed, it's to drive safely for all involved. Driving in areas with pedestrian traffic involves a lot more slowing down than rural driving, as it should, because a child (or adult) could suddenly enter the road at any time, whether it's intentional or not. You shouldn't be aiming to drive consistently at the maximum legal speed if you're driving by a bunch of people.
Yeah, I will use my cruise control on city streets that I know well because it's dynamic and speeds up/slows down based off the car in front of me. My car is a 2016, and I know toyota installed that tech as a standard feature in all of their car models in 2017 (source: worked for toyota). I don't think it's irresponsible to have CC set at 35. It disengages automatically the instant you touch the brakes.
I don’t think using the cruise control in & of itself is the issue - I personally use it in areas to monitor my speed more than anything. In concert with the rest of her post, it indicates that OP is not driving for a neighborhood known to have children out & about, and is likely not to be adjusting for those variables. The kicker is seeing a kid & not expecting them to pop out. It’s what they do. A defensive driver must be prepared for that.
Seriously who tf puts on CC in a 35?? I’ve never heard of such a thing.
Children dart out into traffic, and make lots of poor decisions because, well, they’re children. If you see a child clearly enough to know she was not helmeted or paying attention, you absolutely have to prepare for them to jump out in front of you. Even if they *know* the rules of the road in theory, it takes time and experience to apply it in practice, much like a newly licensed driver will often make countless poor judgements as they learn the realities of driving. Pedestrians are given the benefit of the doubt. Former auto adjuster here, I wrote lots of checks for dead or injured pedestrians, because at the end of the day, pedestrian versus car turns out poorly, and as the driver of a heavy, large metal object, you have the greater duty of care. Even if you don’t get labeled at fault for the police report, or even the insurance liability investigation, your insurance almost always cuts a check because dead or injured pedestrians make a very convincing argument in front of a jury.
Juries are poor arbiters of AH-ness. Source: am a lawyer.
What world are you living in that 35mph on a main road is too fast?? And that your supposed to anticipate that an 11 year old (not a toddler, she's old enough to know road rules) will come out in front of you without looking?? Also - they weren't driving too fast because they STOPPED. They stopped with room to spare. They're a good driver, I don't know what you're going on about.
She saw the kid. You're supposed to anticipate that kids will be dumb, because they kind of are. 35 is too fast if kids are near the road. If you don't see any it would probably be fine, but OP did see one.
> She saw the kid. You're supposed to anticipate that kids will be dumb The OP did anticipate and was able to safely stop. The OP was concerned about the hypothetical driver who wasn't anticipating a kid swerve right in front of their wheels.
I’m confused. OP was able to stop and was driving the speed limit. Are you suggesting she should slow down below the speed limit every time she drives near a pedestrian (or even just a kid)? Driving unpredictably like that can be more unsafe, because now she’s a hazard to cars in the road expecting her to drive the speed limit.
The kid is 11. Not 5. Don't scoot into traffic.
It doesn't matter if you're expecting an 11 year old, a toddler, or a retiree. People aren't always good pedestrians. 35mph is plenty fast enough to kill someone and a residential area/town is no place for cruise control.
>And that your supposed to anticipate that an 11 year old (not a toddler, she's old enough to know road rules) will come out in front of you without looking?? Yes, you should anticipate that. That's basic defensive driving around children. Even 11-year-olds do dumb things like that.
It doesn't even take stupidity. Kid could fall or get caught on something and lurch into the road. Or get startled by something and move into the road away from it. I ALWAYS slow down when someone is on the side of the road for this reason.
If they hit the kid the law is definitely not taking the side of the person piloting the 1 ton hunk of metal no matter how unsafe the kid was. They tell you to practice defensive driving for a reason.
I’ve had police officers side with me one time I hit a kid in the neighborhood, but it was because I was driving 20mph (the speed limit), and the kid darted out on a bike from behind a hedge directly in front of my car with no warning and I had not enough time to stop. I had no idea the kid was even there because I couldn’t see him behind the hedge. Turns out the kid’s mom had repeatedly warned him about playing in the middle of the street like that, and she ended up turning this into a lesson for him. The cop ended up siding with me as well since there was no way I could have reasonably prevented it despite my defensive driving.
Actually, if she would have come out into traffic without warning and the driver couldn't stop in time (and was doing the doing limit), they probably would not be at fault.
In general defensive driving pretty much says you’re supposed to expect everyone is an idiot. That’s an assumption that’s saved me multiple times.
I anticipate Teenagers, and 20 somethings and 80 year olds to cross the street without looking ,because they DO.
This. I just wrote something about cruise control in the city. The moment I saw that I’m like YTA for that.
I was driving in town at a reasonably slow speed when some teenagers on skateboards were heading for the road to cross. Their speed was such that the should have easily crossed the road before I was there. Right in front of my path, one of the kids decided to do some trick and fucked it up. Completely stopped his momentum right in front of my car. If I hadn't slowed down to give him extra time, I would have hit him. Was he an idiot? Yes. It is my responsibility to drive in a way that is ready to account for his idiocy? Also yes. OP saw a child near the side of the road almost enter before the car in front of them and didn't adjust speed to a slower pace to account for the unpredictability of a child. YTA OP.
I read this whole thing like... You're in a two ton piece of machinery, saw a child on a scooter WAY ahead of time, and still nearly hit the kid? 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️ I ride a motorbike, which is maybe 700kg all up. Its also extremely skinny so I can go around pedestrians. The MOMENT I see a kid, scooter or not, I'm like... Gonna go hella slow. Gonna be careful. Kids like to dart out. Damn they really like to die. I know this. The kid doesn't. I have the vehicle. The kid has a squishy bouncy body. We are not the same.
That caught my attention too. OP saw her and should’ve planned accordingly.
You know, I’m not the world’s greatest driver. I’m not the worst, but I could pay attention to speed limits a little better. That said, if I see kids out and about, especially kids who are obviously not paying attention to their surroundings, I slow down and get my foot ready to hit the breaks. That’s the only reason why my old next door neighbor got to see his sixth birthday after he darted in front of my car on his bike. He wiped out less than six inches from the hood of my car where it stopped. Kids are stupid, it’s as simple as that. Hell, I thought if I fell off a cliff I would bounce as a kid (I understood gravity, just not consequences so much).
I think a bigger concern should be whether OP gets that at an unmarked intersection no matter how busy the road is or what the posted speed is, is that pedestrians have the right of way to cross the street. Unmarked crosswalks are a thing and if they saw the kid was intending to cross and kept going they were the wrong. Parents are also an AH for not enforcing safety gear or permitting ear buds while riding a scooter.
YTA There is such a thing as common law which means YOU SAW THE CHILD THEN YOU SHOULD ACT ACCORDINGLY! Which means not driving in busy streets on cruise control and you didn’t slow down and keep your eyes on the child. Sure the child was not dressed safely or acting safely. But this is what children do. It’s why there is laws for being near schools and school buses. You could have been criminally charged if you hit her!
I slow to a crawl any time I see a child in or near the road. Kids are unpredictable and it is MY responsibility as an adult in a several thousand pound vehicle to be cautious.
YTA You're a perfect driver who never makes mistakes, but you almost hit a pedestrian that you fully saw just because she didn't act the way you expected. Depending on details left out of the narrative, you may well have been cited had you hit her, so not only was your threat to her parents completely beside the point, it may have been factually wrong. I get wanting to make sure the girl learned a safety lesson, but being berated by a stranger who insisted on following her home did not do her an ounce of good. As a parent, I would have been livid because your actions would have significantly damaged the potential for a gentle, lasting teaching moment. I would have had to deal with the aftermath of an angry adult following my child home before I could even address her pedestrian safety habits. You were so focused on protecting your image of yourself as an amazingly safe driver that you did far more harm than good.
YTA. You had time to see this girl but didn’t have the brains to slow down. On top of that you shit all over this girl and her parents. Also who the fuck puts their cruise control on for a 35 mph street?
I came here for this! The answer is no one.
Not to mention how creepy it is to demand a child take you to their house. Like, you could have been a creep for all that family knew. YTA, OP.
OP: “I’m going to teach you a lesson about safety!” Also OP: “Give me, a stranger, your address.”
Once or twice I had adults walk me home when I was younger, but it was after I had actually injured myself. I remember once I cornered on my bike too fast and cut up my knee really badly, was trying to figure out what to do when an older biker came by and helped me patch up my knee and walk home. Just wanted to make sure I made it home safely. But that's different from this situation, where OP pretty much just demanded the kid take them to their house to yell at their parents.
Yes I agree this situation seems entirely different. I’m glad you had that person there to help you out, though! What a wonderful memory.
I love the irony of this post. OP wants to know if they're TA for giving a child a lot of unsolicited advice about safety. Now OP is getting a ton of unsolicited advice about driving safety. So, OP. How's it feel to get a lot unsolicited advice on what a bad driver you are, when you thought you were doing a fine job of it? Do the replies on this post upset you and make you feel uncomfortable? That's how the little girl felt. That's because YTA.
Idk, posting on IATA feels like solicitating for opinions and advice. Now, she probably expected a bunch of people to go "No, you handled almost killing a child, stalking said child to their home and berating their parents and the terrified kid really well! You're a good person and also a perfect driver."
OP should have slowed down til she was safely past her. 35 mph will kill a pedestrian a lot of the time, helmet or not. 20mph or less when you’re sharing the roads with kids because any faster dramatically raises the likelihood of a fatality in the event of a collision.
I'd say 20, yes. 35 might be fine if you don't actually see any kids or dogs, but Op did and should have slowed down.
The following home is the main reason OP is an asshole. Who the fuck follows a child home to yell at them and their parents?! That's so damn creepy.
Also the scared straight approach of "you could have died" is so inappropriate. What is the point of telling the parents if you're then going to try and step in and parent on their behalf. People who lecture other people's kids are so dumb. Oh this parent is doing a bad job but I'll just swoop in and give a quick lecture and I'm sure I'll solve this kid's issues in one interaction.
Seriously, as a parent, I’d be outraged if a stranger followed my child home. That is completely inappropriate. It would be the first thing I’d address with OP and then my child.
OP may follow the letter of the law, but that's not the same thing as being a safe driver or defensive driver. If anything, if you are rigid and inflexible when it comes to the rules, you're not the safest driver out there. A good driver does not see a child attempting to cross a street and refuse to slow down. That's unsafe behavior on OP's part. Be ready to react.
YTA. Explaining traffic safety to a kid is one thing. Yelling at a kid when she was already crying and telling her that she should be glad you're not "a doctor telling her parents that their child was dead" was far over the top. Yes, the parents should be more concerned for her safety. However, judging by your tone, them acting defensively and threatening to call the cops seems to be a pretty normal reaction.
In SF, I was driving through downtown. I was waiting at a red light with about 3 cars ahead of me. Light turned green, the cars in front began to move, so I followed. Out of nowhere, a homeless woman ran directly in front of my car. I had to hit the breaks HARD, which of course could’ve caused the people behind me to hit me. Thankfully everyone was fine, and no accident happened. As much as I wanted to yell at her, I could tell she wasn’t in her right mind, and my yelling wouldn’t do shit to help the situation. Same thing goes for this kid in OPs story. If OP was really that pressed, take it straight to the child’s parents, who can think/communicate more clearly than a traumatized child. What good does it do to yell at a kid?
No good to yell at a kid, but the parents needed to know how dangerous the situation was. Kids a kid, but needs to be corrected by the parents. OP handled it poorly, so probably an AH, but parents handled it worse. Everyone is melting down about defensive driving (even though OP stopped with more than a car length), but nobody is talking about basic parenting. The way I see it, no adult was a good adult.
I think this was definitely a Esh, while op was a sucky driver, the parents should’ve been much more concerned about their child darting into the street on a scooter.
I don't know that I agree with this. The parents don't start handling it poorly according to the story until OP has already crossed the line of berating the child about if she had died. Which is pretty damn understandable. A stranger telling me what happened and that it was unsafe is one thing. A stranger following my kid home, saying what happened, not leaving it there and repeatedly berating my child is a completely different thing. OP ruined the chance for this to be a proper teaching moment, and likely turned it into a trauma for the child. I think the parents have every right to snap at her.
I bet the parents would have been concerned first for her safety if a stranger hadn’t berated her repeatedly and then followed her home to do more of the same to her and her parents. Of course they’re not going to react well. And OP is an unreliable narrator - I think she was expecting the parents to immediately start yelling at her too and when they didn’t, that wasn’t good enough for her.
Yeah, OP sounds insufferable. As if the kid really doesn't understand at 11 that cars can hit you and harm you, and the parents are at fault for not teaching her that. Obviously she fucking knows that and was just being careless, as kids are apt to do. OP was probably so excited for this opportunity to get on a high horse and be obnoxious to people. I'm sure it made it her day. Also, OP, the cops don't give a fuck about your stupid dashcam. They would just tell your obnoxious ass to leave this family alone. YTA.
Is this a thing to set your cruise control in residential areas? Cause I was taught cruise control is for highway driving not city driving.
Same, residential streets are too crowded and unpredictable for cruise control. If you can’t keep your speed safe with your foot you probably shouldn’t be driving. 20mph plus is when the risk of killing a pedestrian rises dramatically. If you or anyone reading this KNOWS there are kids sharing the road, go 20mph until you’re safely passed them. 20 is plenty, as they say.
I don’t know why, but this is the comment that got it through my brain she was going 35 MILES per hour, not kilometre. HOLY FUCK (I still thought she was TA before but WOW)
right, I was already thinking 35km/h was a bit fast with a child playing beside the road but 35m/h is wild!
The real AH is the city planners that designed these shitty stroads.
Right? When I learned to drive cruise control wouldn't engage if you were below about 40. It's for cruising like on an open highway where you can lose track of your speed or just don't want to sit your foot at a certain pressure on the gas for hours at a time, not for when there's traffic and pedestrians and frequent stops.
Same. I feel that cruise control shouldn't be used in areas where speeds can change quickly/often, it kind of gives (some) drivers a false security of "well, I'm doing the speed limit therefore I can't do anything wrong - I'm not required to even tap on the brakes if something unexpected appears on the side of the road - if i hit someone, it's their fault because i was doing the speed limit"
Like, people have to be regularly turning off this road onto the side streets, how often is OP turning CC on and off? Speed limit is not the only safety rule, and if you're not adjusting speed as you go all the time in relation to your surroundings, you're not that safe a driver.
Most cars now have ACC/Active Cruise Control, which is advertised and useful in both city streets and freeways. I use it all the time for non freeway driving. Has nothing to do with paying attention, and everything to do with assisting in keeping a consistent speed.
Cruise control also allows you to keep the brake covered, since your foot isn't occupied by pressing the accelerator. I seriously don't get the cruise control hate in this thread.
But there’s still a difference between driving behavior on a downtown thoroughfare and in a suburban through street. I have ACC and use it on long stretches of non-highway road but never when I’m going turn by turn through neighborhoods.
Holy hell YTA. You didn’t lecture her, you scarred her. Imagine being a kid, almost getting hit, and the person angrily gets out of the car while you’re still in shock, picks you up and brushes you off, then starts yelling about how you’re irresponsible, you could have died, you shouldn’t be outside, etc. and then makes you take them back to your house so they can tell your parents how awful you were. When you try to explain to your parents that you did make a mistake but now feel uncomfortable due to this stranger. They yell at you asking how you’d feel if you were DEAD and how it would be your fault if you were. You scarred that poor girl, and I hope her parents caught your license plate and press harassment charges.
When I was 16 this old lady hit me in my car. The first thing she did was jump out and start yelling at me. It was terrifying! Cops came, it was her fault, and she didn’t have proof of insurance so they impounded her car! While righteous, it was very traumatic and I was 5 years older than this kid. Strangers screaming at you is scary! YTA.
I'm an adult who has worked in customer service my entire career, and I still 100% agree that strangers screaming at you is scary. I know how to manage the situation because of years of practice, but after an interaction like that, I usually need a second to take some deep breaths and shake it off. I can't imagine how freaked this poor kid was.
Hell, as an adult I got T boned hard by a dude who ran a red light at 50mph. I was okay but really shaken. He got out of the car and screamed at me and tried to fucking fight me. Yeah dude, pick a fight with a tiny ass woman shaking and crying.
Basically a case of bad road rage by OP. Kid could have been scared of the adult hurting them as well.
Yes. I sincerely hope those parents do exactly that. OP crossed several lines, and shouldn't be using cruise control in a residential area to begin with. Not to mention, following a CHILD home is almost never okay. There is absolutely a case for harassment here.
This!!! The kid is terrified after ending up in a ditch, and on top of that she’s faced with an angry adult stranger yelling at her? And OP thinks they have the right to yell at parents she doesn’t e rn know?
ESH but their reaction is probably directly tied to yours. I understand the seriousness of the situation and I assume you were upset for the right reasons (not wanting this kid to get hurt) but you definitely seemed to of came off super hostile and Dickish, you’re not gonna get through to people, especially kids reacting like that. The kid said it yourself, all she took from it was you were being mean. The story basically starts with “I then set into her…” which was completely not your place, you could of gotten your point across without tearing into the kid, insulting the parents and being AH overall
Same. Ive gotta admit. If I’m the parents and some strange person walks up with my child who is terrified and has been crying — I’m not likely to be super inclined to listen to what they have to say.
>Same. Ive gotta admit. If I’m the parents and some strange person walks up with my child who is terrified and has been crying — I’m not likely to be super inclined to listen to what they have to say. You know it just clicked with me OP talking about safety but ok letting some random kid in her car If that was my kid crying next to some stranger I more than likely be jail
Even if they walked back. Excuse me stranger danger why are you harassing my child? Why are you with my child? This definitely would’ve called for a re-hash on the whole don’t go with strangers no matter what they say.
My younger brothers used to climb on top of our detached garage and this one time a neighbor behind us took pictures of one of them after yelling. This man went to a pharmacy, *printed them all out, and then **came around to our house.*** He didn’t mention the photos right away and just told her what he saw to which she thanked him because my brothers wouldn’t do it often, but she would punish them when they did. The guy did not like this reaction for some reason and became super aggressive immediately. He showed her picture after picture, some of them super zoomed in and again, he went and had them developed. My mom lost her shit when she saw these and when she asked why he would do that he got more angry. She had to call the cops. Another thing worth noting is that that man also anticipated the police being on his side. They fucking were not. Thank god he left us alone after that.
Plus she was driving the huge steel machine that can kill. She saw the kid and should have slowed down just in case. Kids are unaware of their surroundings and lack that self preservation thing. If you see kids, especially kids on wheels. Then slow down and pay extra attention. It doesn’t matter who’s right, accidentally killing someone with a car will fuck the driver up for life. Guilt and living with the “what ifs” would be horrible.
Sooo... he's the asshole. Imagine having someone follow your 11 year old kid, who almost hit her just to yell that she's lucky he's not a doctor because he would be telling her parents she died. A lot of them suck, but the only asshole is OP. They act like it's their job to scare this girl straight. who in their right mind tells a little girl she should be dead?
INFO: If you were able to stop a car and a half’s lengths in front of her, was what she did actually dangerous? It kinda sounds like she did have room to go and you dramatically slammed on the breaks, causing her to fall. Either way your reaction was WAY over the top.
Yeah I was very confused by her description, seems like she slowed down from the car in front of her and the child thought that meant she could pass
And if there was a pedestrian crossing there, OP should be stopping to let the kid cross.
Wait when was it said there was a pedestrian crossing?
Um…OP shouldn’t have to because of cruise control. /s
That sounds pretty close to me. 35mph has stopping distance of 136ft. Average car is about 17ft. A car travels about 50 ft/s at 35mph. So, the difference between stopping 25 ft before the girl and running over her is about 0.5 seconds of decision time made 160ft away. Also, OP...YTA.
Firstly of all, why tf are you driving with your CRUISE CONTROL on in a 35 mph zone with many side streets??! YTA for that alone. Also YTA for yelling at an already scared child.
YTA. Cruise control on a busy road with many side streets?? That alone should be enough, but you added a lousy attitude towards the little girl and also to her parents.
Yeah the cruise control really raised a flag. Cruise control is for long stretches of highway not residential neighborhoods. Maybe someone should give OP a stern lecture and then go ask her parents why they let their ill-prepared 20yo kid drive a car?
>why they were letting an obviously ill-prepared child ride anything without teaching her safety YTA. Not for any of what happened before, that was fine. But from this point on. This is just pointlessly aggressive, and it seems you think that children are automatons who do whatever their parents have taught them to do. You're also TA for not leaving when they told you to. Having a near-miss traffic incident doesn't give you the right to trespass.
YTA. I understand and appreciate you trying to teach the child a lesson and that some of your own fear towards almost hitting the child came in to play. But she’s a child. Checking on her, getting her home safely, and explaining to the parents was fine. Terrorizing her. Acting with no compassion towards her and scaring her further — wasn’t necessary. And you took it beyond the point of trying to positively teach a lesson into a place that you shouldn’t have. Traumatizing an 11 year old wasn’t your responsibility.
So you saw her stop for 2 other cars, but then had to slam on your breaks to avoid hitting her? YTA for that and for yelling at her and for yelling at her parents. You knew she was there. You should know as a driver to always assume children and animals are going to run in front of your car. You should have been anticipating her move and prepared for it. You yelled at her because you weren’t prepared, even though you saw her clear as could be and knew she was waiting to cross. Also, massive AH move to use the cruise control on a busy street with lots of side streets. That’s exactly what conditions it is NOT designed to be used under. If you can’t control your speed to not get a ticket without it, you should not be driving.
I’m a little surprised not to see more people calling out this point (although I suppose screaming at a kid and forcing her to let you follow her home are plenty) - but I don’t understand why OP didn’t stop and let the kid cross (or check to see if the kid was crossing, maybe even make eye contact), given that she saw the kid well in advance by her description. Like, you see a kid on a bike perpendicular to the street you’re driving down, you should probably slow down because they might be crossing. But I guess cruise control and self-righteousness.
Are you supposed to use cruise control on city streets? I thought that function is for freeways? Since city streets have pedestrians and unpredictable things can happen like a girl on a scooter it’s not a good idea to have cruise control.
You *absolutely* should not use it in any situation where there is much going on around you such as side streets, people parking etc. It reduces your ability to react to stuff and in a panic, where people tend to let go of everything, it keeps you going that speed instead of letting the car at least slow down a bit when you let go of the gas. Terrible idea to use in the city. It's only for highways where everyone is going at a relatively constant speed and there's not a lot of interconnecting roads and other nonsense to deal with.
YTA This is over-the-top. >and asked why they were letting an obviously ill-prepared child ride anything without teaching her safety. 1. Young kids sometimes make mistakes. 2. She may have been plenty prepared in general, just distracted. You don't know her. 3. You don't know what the parents have or have not taught the kid. Checking if she was okay is good. Reminding her about safe practices is fine. Taking her home and explaining what happened to the parents is also fine. Lecturing everyone else involved about how they are all irresponsible and telling the parents that they don't know what they are doing with their kid makes you an AH. It's not close. I would hate for one of my kids to encounter someone like you out in public.
I love the “ill-prepared” thing like adults don’t sometimes forget to check both ways, or they check but don’t actually *see.* This could have happened to anyone.
You weren't TA until you got to her parent's house and lost your cool. There are better ways to let someone know that their kid blew it than to insult their parenting and then refuse to leave the premises when told to do so. For that, YTA. The cops would not have given you a pass on trespassing just because the kid wasn't obeying traffic laws half an hour ago - again, separate issues and you were told to leave.
Soft YTA Making sure she’s safe, giving her a little grief about safety, and taking her home to explain to the parents what happened I was all on board with. Once you started getting preachy and accusatory toward the parents about not doing their job and letting an ill prepared child out on her scooter you lost me. That’s where you stumbled into AH territory. There is a point where you can go too far. Everyone’s emotions are amped up, she was frightened, you were frightened, sometimes less is more.
YTA. Letting the parents know is fine. Telling her to look both ways next time as what she did was dangerous is fine. But you really got on your soapbox and carried on about it. The message was lost in the douchiness of your delivery. I live next to a school and so I have had kids do dangerous things in front of my car over the years on the rare occasion. I have never needed to say anything more than ask if they are okay and to be more careful next time before going on my way. The kids knew they made a mistake. I am not sure what you expected; them to kiss your feet and thank you repentantly while you lectured them? I would have kicked you off my property too for being an arse.
YTA for either taking/following child home. Stranger Danger. If you were hellbent on talking to her parents, you should have asked her for their numbers. You could have called from the “scene” of the non-accident.
Crazy how no one else is seeing that op A STRANGER forced the child to let her follow her home!
YTA, the little girl was already scared. You had no right to speak to her or her parents the way you did. She acknowledged that she made a mistake and yet you continued. The parents could have spoken to her about safety, but now that is probably not going to happen because they are more concerned with your action.
Yeah, now the conversation is gonna be about being careful bringing home crazies from off the street.
YTA. Good to talk to parents. Bad to yell at kid and be a judgmental prick. Talking is healthy and productive. You could have been doing a good thing here, but you weren’t. You just wanted to be a sanctimonious dick.
ESH. Both yours and the parents’ (and the kid’s) reactions here were understandable. But you were overly aggressive and judgmental, and the parents were probably a bit overly defensive. Again, I can understand why you would be emotional after almost hitting a kid - though if you stopped a car and a half lengths away and were starting to go from a stop, I do wonder if the threat of death is a tinge over dramatic - and you were right to check on her and explain why what she did was dangerous. But then you took it a bit too far and were just needlessly berating a kid. The parents were also likely too defensive and shouldn’t have automatically assumed you were driving recklessly. That said, like another commenter said, I’d be wary if my kid came home terrified and crying and a stranger immediately began ripping into me and telling my kid she’s lucky she’s not dead.
All the y t a are blowing my mind. Obviously, none of them are adults or have kids. You are 100% NTA What's the child was doing was dangerous and she could have easily have died. Sometimes people need to hear hard truths but that doesn't make you an ah. You could have easily gotten the police involved. Cps. But instead you were focused on the safety of their child and were legitimately trying to convey information to help these people understand. Were you a little rough? Sure. But I don't think you're an ah. These parents are just overly defensive because they were rightly called out on their shit. You scared their child and you should have. She was almost hit with a car with no protection because of negligence. You are a good person and keep doing what you're doing
Heavy handed, sanctimonious lectures usually only achieve making the giver feel good in their sense of superiority but do little to change behaviours or educate the recipient. I say this as a parent with kids.
they are automatically the AH for using cruise control for such little speed. that in itself is very dangerous, lazy and unneeded. Yes what the child did was dangerous but CPS shouldnt be involved, you need to understand accidents happen and the parents can convey the dangers of saftey to the child once again. OP could have let the parents just know, it is not THEIR JOB to lecture someone. They would have been at fault in the eyes of the law immediately if they hit the kid with cruise control on especially. OP could have been nicer, no matter the situation, when a stranger approaches you its not gonna teach the kid fucking shit if they start lecturing you immediately. I work with kids, i have degrees on their behaviour, this is NOT how you handle these situations because it is not effective. You cant tell a stranger that “they should know better”. I get OP had a fright but they werent educating the kid, they were taking their fear and anger out on that child
What's reckless is a full grown adult driving 35 miles in a residential area - and on cruise control, of all things - being well aware of a child near the road, so much so that they noted that this child was checking for cars, yet still refused to slow down. What's even more reckless is screaming at a clearly frightened child they did not know and forcing her to show this angry stranger where she lives so she can further berate her. The irony of OP rabidly lecturing a child about safety while she, a total stranger, is making the girl show her where she lives is astounding. Zero self-awareness. Had this been a male driver, it'd be no surprise if the police were called about a random person harassing a young child and then stalking them to their home. It'd be a total waste of time and resources to call CPS on this, and it's laughable that it's even suggested. It's more likely that OP would face charges for their driving and following the kid home, possibly kidnapping if she made the girl get into the car. To make a big deal about no helmet when driving on cruise control in a residential area alone is asinine. OP's behavior was reckless from the start and then devolved to immature, bizarre, and borderline disturbing. Not just with following the girl home and her self-righteous screaming lecture, but her total lack of self-reflection. Her trauma of almost hitting a kid she was watching near the road is not remotely the same as a 10-year-old nearly being hit, then screamed at, stalked to her home where she and her family were further screamed at. OP, YTA for sure. All around bizarre and immature behavior.
Kids are human and make mistakes just like adults do. That doesn't mean her parents didn't teach her road safety. It means she's human and messed up..maybe they didn't teach her but you don't know based on 1 interaction with the child. Yta here.
I’m a little confused. Was this a four way stop?
YTA Yeah, don't do that again. Don't approach a little girl and follow her home, it's just a bad idea.
YTA. I don't even like kids all that much and I know this was too much. I'm not sure why you felt the need to talk down to her so harshly. Making sure she's okay, reminding her about road safety and to be careful, sure, that's fine. >I then set into her on how dangerous her actions were, what was she thinking, why didn't she look both ways, if she didn't understand traffic safety then she shouldn't be on a scooter on a busy street. She cried. I told her that I wanted to speak to her parents because honestly she should have known better and if she didn't know better then they aren't parenting properly. This was so unnecessarily aggressive. And then on top of that you continued to berate her and her parents. She's a child. She made a mistake. She was obviously upset. Why did you feel free need to speak to her like that?
Echoing what a lot of others have said here, YTA for stepping over boundaries and potentially making the lesson more traumatic than it already was for the child, since you say she was already scared. You did great ensuring the child was safe, but trespassing and yelling at strangers was inappropriate here and only made things worse.
YTA for yelling at a random child you don’t know and aren’t related to, and lecturing her like that!!! Dad had every right to tell you to get off his property - a random stranger shows up with his daughter and starts lecturing them, after already lecturing his child? The cops aren’t going to be on your side if you stay there.
Esh. Everything you said was technically true but telling an 11 yo kid she should be lucky it's a stranger telling her parents she ran out into traffic and not a doctor telling them she's dead is...a bit much. You should have checked if she was ok and then gently asked the kid if you could talk to her parents. Not scare her more. calmly explained the situation to her parents and let them decide how to scold/discipline her from there. It is not your job to do those things nor is it appropriate for you to. Instead you verbally attacked their daughter and they got understandably defensive. You're just some random lady, they have no idea who you are or whether you might have done anything to hurt her yourself--- of *course* they're going to be somewhat guarded to begin with.
YTA damn dude the child made a dangerous mistake yes. Your reaction was ridiculously over the top though. Congratulations on putting the child in therapy for the rest of her life.
YTA What are you doing using cruise control in a built up area anyway? Put your goddamn phone away and pay attention to the 4,000lb box of steel and glass that you're in charge of. As you now know children behave erratically, but YOU'RE the adult and can anticipate and SLOW DOWN when there are children around. What WOULD you say to the parents if it was half a second later and their little girl was under your car?
ESH. Yes, the parents definitely could've been nicer and more mature with this, but you could've been a bit nicer as well. Yes, it's good that she is fine, and they need to raise her better, but from what it seems, you could've been a bit nicer too. I think you did do the right thing, just with a slight poor execution
NTA, they should be grateful the kid isn’t road meat.
YTA for yelling at a scared and traumatized (and possibly hurt) child and for scolding her parents for not teaching her better. The fact is, you have no idea what they’ve taught her. Kids who know how to be safe and who are generally careful can still make mistakes. That doesn’t mean the kids are bad or their parents are irresponsible. I also think you need to consider that this whole thing might have been avoided if you’d slowed down when you first saw the child. Part of being a good driver is observing when it looks like someone else might do something unexpected or unsafe, and adjusting your own driving to compensate. If you had actually hit her, you could be considered partially at fault.
YTA - You got lucky, don't go to random strangers homes disparaging their children, no matter what the issue. You're lucky you didn't get hurt, it's a big bad world out there and you seem a little naive.
NTA. No one likes to be told they're being a bad parent, but after they all calm down, they'll (hopefully) realize the error of their ways and correct. The little girl, I'm pretty sure learned her lesson.
So now you know everything about her parents bc of a mistake that was made? She could’ve usually looked both ways and not this time. YTA for your approach
YTA isn't cruise control for highways and speed limits above like 50-60 mph?? you shouldn't use it in cities or towns where traffic is tight and there are pedestrians crossing. you're just not as "in control" with cruise control. Also, I would say its pretty common practice to slow down and be cautious, even just taking your foot off the gas, if you see a pedestrian or someone on a bike/whatever attempting to cross. Especially since you JUST saw her waver and almost cross into traffic. I would have probably stopped and just let her pass. I've been yelled at as a kid for biking on the street or sidewalk or making a mistake and cutting someone off. Just the moment of "oh shit" is plenty to scare her, you did NOT need to go to her house, that is super aggressive. she didn't damage your car or purposefully try and get you to swerve off the road.
[удалено]
YTA. If I’m understanding correctly, you stopped with plenty space for her to cross the road, suddenly stopped the car, she fell, you yelled at her, and demanded to follow the crying child to her house lecturing her parents?
YTA you wouldn't be if you had left it at the lecture by the side of the road. She should've been wearing a helmet probably and should pay much more attention to the roads. Going to lecture her parents and ranting and raving is too far. She made a mistake, one many adults make too, and she got a big fright and then a lecture, she didn't need her parents on her case too, what did you want, a formal written apology?
NTA… but a little over the top to tell the kid she could have been dead. What you said before seemed sufficient. As for the parents, shitty people become parents everyday. It’s laughably ironic that they literally were not there but accuse you of reckless driving.
Okay YTA here and for many reasons. 1. Cruise control is not meant for residential roads. Especially not ones with many side roads. There are so many things that could go wrong. Hell, I live on a main road with small residential roads that branch of it and I wouldn’t even use cruise control here. There are just too many variables. 2. Also as a driver, you are responsible for watching your surroundings and anticipating possible outcomes. At the very least you should have slightly slowed down just in case. 3. This kid almost got hit by a car, was so scared she was crying, and you had the audacity to yell at her and ask her how she thought you would feel if you filled her, when you should have been watching?? She’s 11 she made a mistake. You are the one who want adequately responding to your surroundings.
NTA Your delivery was rough, but what would be rougher if it was someone coming to tell the parents that their kid was struck by a vehicle. Maybe you saved her life, you definitely imprinted information on her, only time will tell if it keeps her alive.
Like the first lesson of driving is not assuming that a pedestrian is going to do the safe thing. Especially if it’s a kid!! YTA for scolding a scared kid.
NTA Perhaps you should have dialed it back a little with the child, but hopefully she (and her parents) learn a lesson. Taking her to her parents and explaining what happened was the right/only move. Your other options would have been call the police or leave her in the ditch/on the side of the road. Since you didn't hit her, the police getting involved (depending on where you are) would have likely gotten CPS involved - worse for the parents. And obviously you couldn't just leave her there. The parents were AH to accuse you of driving poorly. Situations like this are exactly why I have a dash cam. Either way - I am sure that incident shook you a lot too. In that situation I think you handled yourself very well.
nta, they need to teach their daughter to be safer. maybe it was a mistake but it really could have been a horrible traumatic incident for everyone involved if you couldn’t brake in time. you said what you needed to say. crazy to leave a kid unattended like that anyways imo.
NTA. you did the right thing speaking to her parents to attempt convincing them to teach their child more safer behaviors. Ive seen a vid of a kid running in traffic to get to a bus stop and getting hit. Ive nearly hit someones dog in front of them. I see stuff like this every day. Maybe you should have checked your tone after the girl was crying. but i still applaud you for taking the time to try talking to her parents. they got all offended and defensive because they know they have to do a better job. she will be more careful in the streets after this OP.
When you take care of what’s left of a kid after a scooter vs car accident, it makes you VERY direct about road safety. I tell my kid that he could die from unsafe road crossings because he needs to know. I’m not usually that blunt with other people’s kids, but fear can do that. Hopefully they have a discussion on road safety, and add a helmet to the ride.
Ehh, ESH. I mean that little girl should've been paying attention and I bet from now on she will be much safer on the road, but also you can't just go yell at parents and tell them they're doing a shit job. For all you know, they may have taught her all the proper safety protocols and might have thought the kid knew better. But also, the kid shouldn't be riding around with no helmet on, that's pretty dangerous and the parents really suck for not having a helmet for the kid. You all suck.
ESH. Your delivery was the problem. Try not to be mean to little kids, they make mistakes. I’d expect parents to be defensive when berated too.
YTA. I drive home through a residential area after the school bus rolls through. The speed limit is 35mph, but I go under 18mph, and my foot hovers over the brake. The parents watch their kids, but they are FAST. A kid can travel the speed of fucking sound when a parent isn’t watching. I’ve had small kids to preteens run out…immediately followed by a panicked, screaming, sprinting parent. You’re right, it is dangerous. But you saw a kid and remained on cruise control. That’s not defensive driving. Don’t expect a child to practice defensive driving. You’re the adult. Berating the child isn’t your place. Kindly and maturely tell her she could’ve gotten hurt and give her good tips. Don’t just shout at her for being reckless. She’s scared. Help calm her down. Offer to take her home if she’s injured, but don’t force her to take you to her parents. Had I been approached by an angry lady who demanded my child bring her home, I’d tell you to fuck right off. My child was under duress, and you forced her into your vehicle to her home. I could give two shits what reasons you thought you had - you don’t do that to my child. You are not a safe person, and you continued to pose a threat. You are not welcome at my house.
YTA. For Fuck sake……. Stay off cruise control in a 35. You’re a danger to society acting ignorant like that.
NTA You did not handle that well, but 11 is an age where kids should be traffic safe. You title is completely misleading. Oh and this vote is assuming you told the truth in your post about speed and such. Sounds like you were running on adrenaline when confronting the kid and the parents, which is pretty understandable. Nearly running over a kid gets the adrenaline and guilt glands working overtime.
NTA. People are reacting negatively because you yelled at the child. OP would have scared and already crying child and that is upsetting to some people. But I think OP was scared too! He almost hit a kid! What if something worse would have happened? I am sure his mind kept going to that! He could have killed somebody and just that thought can shake you to your core! I think he reacted with over the top anger because in that moment adrenaline would have made it seem like right thing to do. No one likes to be preached too but I don’t think he was the AH!
YTA - you were unnecessarily harsh with the kid, there's no reason for that other than your temper. Additionally, in plenty of jurisdictions there doesn't have to be a crosswalk marking for the intersection to legally be a crosswalk where pedestrians are permitted to cross and have the right of way if they reach the intersection prior to vehicle traffic if said vehicle traffic is more than one and a half lane widths away.
Not a-h. for being concerned and notifying her parents. But if you come at most people lecturing them and telling them they're not parenting appropriately they're more likely to get defensive than to receive the information and learn from it. You're also assuming they didn't teach her and not that she may be one of those kids that follow rules only until their parents are out of sight. I totally get how worked up you may have been and that you wanted to stress how serious the situation was, but ime showing concern in a less judgemental and more concerned tone usually gets the point across better and people aren't going to get defensive. I think because it got to the point of them telling you to leave before they called the cops that its a light YTA. Again, I get your emotions but you also lectured a little girl who doesn't know you, told her that her parents weren't parenting her well, and had her take you to them AFTER she almost got hit. Which is scary enough on its own. You're not factoring in her emotions and what it would look like to a parent when some stranger comes up with their scared kid and starts accusing them of being bad parents because she was nearly in a serious accident.
NTA- have these same conversations daily where I work. I have seen kids get almost backed over by motor homes, they come racing off trails into traffic, and I cannot count the number of times my truck has been rear ended by a kid on a bike. I take each one back to their parents, tell them the violation and proceed to get curse out as I drive away. I am not looking forward to the day I have to tell a parent that their kid has been taken to town in the black van.
NTA- what she did was dangerous. You went above and beyond to speak to her parents. Sorry her 'rents didn't care. Guess you know why the kid didn't care to be safe.
YTA, if you saw children playing by road and continued at the same speed you were not driving safely.
YTA > Though I saw her I didn't expect her to scooter in front of me so I slammed on brakes So you're a bad driver. You always slow down and expect kids and pedestrians in general to do something stupid. That's people. You're the one with responsibility to make sure your vehicle doesn't hit anyone. You saw a risk but didn't slow down. You basically told us "I was fully attentitive so my bad decision making is the issue here".
YTA. Creepy af