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[tigers_gonads]

Why is it worse when a child is killed? Is a child's life somehow more important than a teenager, or and adult, or a little old dear?

I think the media try to outrage us all when something involves a child, and its rubbing off on society.

Agree that the media make a meal of it BUT a child's life is worth more then a 70 year old or somebody much less.

A child is a mother and father's and this planets future and due to this horrible accident / gross incompetence, she is dead.
She never got the chance to grow and make her mark in this world 


Slightly off topic and hypothetical but imagine this scenario.

1 body organ / course of drugs available.

2 patents so one lives and 1 dies.

1 patent is 5 years old.
The other is 65 years old.

Who gets the organ / drugs ?

No brainer imho 

[Nick W]

Why is it worse when a child is killed? Is a child's life somehow more important than a teenager, or and adult, or a little old dear?

I think the media try to outrage us all when something involves a child, and its rubbing off on society.

Agree that the media make a meal of it BUT a child's life is worth more then a 70 year old or somebody much less.

A child is a mother and father's and this planets future and due to this horrible accident / gross incompetence, she is dead.
She never got the chance to grow and make her mark in this world 

With approximately 250 babies born every minute that's unlikely to actually matter.
For the few people involved, it's a life-changing event. For the rest of us, it's nothing more than a horrible accident.

[TheBoy]

age increases awareness and the sense of self preservation. As you get older you learn not to walk out into the road, and not to put your finger in the fire, or whatever. Therefore, by definition, the young are more vulnerable.

I agree about awareness, but we are born with some degree of common sense...  ...which we could argue "modern namby pamby parenting" drums out of them.

At 4yrs old, I knew not to run into roads, to look left and right, not cross where drivers/cyclists would not be able to see me well, and successfully managed to walk the mile to Dad's work after school (I went to school 5 miles from home) for 7 years without and road related incidents. By 11, as Dad had retired, I had to cycle the 5 miles - although if it was phishing down, he did sometimes go soft 


I agree that driving standards in the UK are shockingly bad, but we must also give some responsibility for stupidity to the parents and the child  (speaking more general than the link above).

[TheBoy]

1 patent is 5 years old.
The other is 65 years old.

Who gets the organ / drugs ?

No brainer imho 

I can't answer that without further info. I certainly wouldn't make a decision like that on age alone (even if it was legal ).  Are you implying the 5yr old's life is worth more?

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

While its pure common sense to drive carefully in supermarket car parks, I get seriously annoyed by people who wander all over the roads (as that's what they are) in these car parks, even when they can see cars are driving straight at them. If they did the same on public highways they would expect to get hit by a vehicle, but apparently none of the rules or common sense which apply on roads and streets, apply in supermarket car parks. 

[Bigron]

Migv6, apparently ALL road traffic laws apply in supermarket and other car parks; anywhere that the public has access - so plod tells me.....

Ron.

[johnnydog]

I have to disagree on this point. There is no law or specific part of the Road Traffic Act that states this. A pedestrian crossing from the offside into the path of a vehicle is viewed differently than a pedestrian crossing from the nearside. Obviously there are a lot of factors that have to be taken into account, such as speed limits, type of road, vehicle speed, actions of the pedestrian, clothing, zones of invisibility, parked vehicles, light conditions, blind spots etc etc, and there probably are more. It is not carte blanche the drivers fault. Any investigation will look into all the aspects, and whether the drivers actions or indeed the actions of the pedestrian departed from the actions of a reasonable person, before any prosecution against a driver is made. A pedestrian can be held liable for an accident just as much as the driver, depending on circumstances / actions immediately before the accident.
Or as the PC brigade would now say, a road traffic collision....as it is said that it is rare that a collision can be deemed an 'accident', as there is usually one party with a higher degree of blame than the other on varying levels, although the terminology of 'accident' is still, I believe, quoted in road traffic law.

[tigers_gonads]

1 patent is 5 years old.
The other is 65 years old.

Who gets the organ / drugs ?

No brainer imho 

I can't answer that without further info. I certainly wouldn't make a decision like that on age alone (even if it was legal ).  Are you implying the 5yr old's life is worth more?

If all things are equal and personnel emotions (which is Nye on impossible to keep out of the equation) are put aside, I do believe the youngest should survive.
The reason being that the youngest in theory has more time to give to society. 

Apologies if I unknowingly touched on something personal, it certainly wasn't my intention.

Sadly the media use this tactic to tap onto the grief of people so they can make a few more quid through paper sales / internet search hits and media coverage 

Its a shit world we live in sadly 

[tigers_gonads]

One thing that strikes me in this situation is how it happened. I read it that she was reversing because she "thought she had hit a trolley" so she has very limited vision. Not that it is an excuse. Then of course there's the question of how fast she was going... Hard to make a judgement without facts. Was it just unlucky that the child hit their head on a curb stone?

I'm not defending the driver and if it were my little girl I'd be livid! But we can't make a judgement without the facts... There's a reason she was treated with a degree of leniency because, generally, our legal system is fair.

^^  This ^^

[tigers_gonads]

On the subject of pedestrian / traffic laws, I believe that if the person is not specifically prohibited from a area then he or she does have priority (which in some cases is friggin stupid)