And the tale of little Cain Byrne is no exception:
A boy of five cycling near his home was hit head-on by a bus - and survived completely unscathed.Whew! What a relief!
His parents must have been beside themselves to see that. It's easily done, one minute they are under supervision with mum and dad and the next they are...
Oh. Wait:
Father Roger, 35, said: 'It's a miracle Cain is alive, he is tiny for his age and he is the luckiest boy in the world.Little Cain is five years old.
...
He added: 'Cain had only been gone five minutes on his bike and my wife and I were sitting inside the house when a woman came up the drive screaming saying he had been hit by a bus.'
And his parents let him cycle on the pavement unattended...
Brandon Jones, deputy managing director of bus company First South Yorkshire said the vehicle was being driven slowly at the time.Pity the parents didn't do everything they could to avoid leaving a five year old on a pedal cycle near a road, eh?
He added: 'The driver was left shaken by what happened. He has been spoken to by police but has not been arrested . We are working closely with the police in terms of the investigation.
'We understand the driver was proceeding through a bus gate, going at a slow speed and the boy unfortunately came out in front of the bus.
'We have CCTV cameras on the bus and we will be looking very closely ay the footage to see if it shows what happened. We have witnesses who say the driver did everything he could to avoid a collision.'
They didn't really call their son 'Cain', did they?
ReplyDeleteWell, he wasn't Abel to spot buses, was he?
ReplyDeleteI'll get me coat.
Good thing the bus hit him head on, or he might have been hurt.
ReplyDelete"The driver has been spoken to by police but has not been arrested."
ReplyDeleteAnd did the police speak to the parents, and perchance, arrest them???
No, thought not...
I notice some of the Daily Mail comments go on about kids being wrapped in cotton wool, and not being allowed out of their parents sight. Well I remember playing in the road when I was young, but there were differences - MUCH less traffic, for a start, and we were taught road sense from an early age.
I frequently see mothers pushing prams with toddlers running 20-30 yards ahead. What chance have they got of intervening if the youngsters run out in front of traffic?
Having children is YOUR responsibility, not someone else's...
I favour natural selection - buses are fine if pit bulls are unavailable. Culling the stupid children of stupid parents is no great loss to the gene pool.
ReplyDelete"Well, he wasn't Abel to spot buses, was he? "
ReplyDelete*chuckle*
"Good thing the bus hit him head on, or he might have been hurt."
Indeed! Evidentlly the lad has acquired his parents' boneheadedness...
"And did the police speak to the parents, and perchance, arrest them???
No, thought not..."
Probably more than their job was worth.
I was driving down a residential street lined with cars on both sides a few days ago - a 30mph stretch, although you'd have to ignore the speed humps to do that.
I saw a woman on the left hand pavement, talking to someone across the road (I assumed a neighbour, though couldn't figure out why she didn't cross the road). As I got closer (doing about 15mph due to the visibility) I realised she was talking to a toddler tottering along the right hand pavement, with (presumably) Dad washing his car in the front garden 20 feet away!
If I'd been doing the posted speed, and the kid had put on a sudden burst of speed himself, he'd have been in the road before either of them could do anything - hidden from any driver's view by the closely parked cars.
Incredibly dangerous and utterly stupid.
"I favour natural selection - buses are fine if pit bulls are unavailable."
I initially thought that, but it's a bit tough on the poor driver...
And will we see a hoard of people rubbing hands trying to apportion blame? From the parents to the Bus Company, the police, Council, 'elf and safety brigade and lawyers.
ReplyDeleteI must be old because the first and last words out of everyone’s gobs would have been 'you stupid boy you could have been killed, look where your going' end of. The parents would have been embarrassed at the trouble their child had caused.
This is why children shouldn't be let out to play on their own as we did. Not because of paedophiles or the child snatcher. Because the message of personal irresponsibility has been re-enforced for so long now that anyone interacting with anyone else in any situation or location expects to be treated with inappropriate suspicion and is unsurprised when confronted by children brought up into now adults that are completely unable to contemplate personal responsibility.
Head line should have read ‘Lucky child avoids death after throwing himself in front of a bus, stupid cunt!’