"Abundance of concern" of course translates to
"Potential liability" i.e., $$$$$

Remember what Bill Maher said...
"It takes a village. But most of us villagers have other shit to do."

Most of us wish nothing bad would happen to anyone, anywhere. We are doomed to disappointment. In the interim, we seem hell-bent on making life difficult for each other.

Another brick in the wall. This and 999 other rules are meant to discourage all private travel. The government will tell you when to move, until then sit there quietly and stop harming Gaia.

In defense of Amtrak, if anything were to happen to a kid on one of their trains, the press would blame Amtrak. That's how incidents of that sort are cast. Look at Penn State. According to the Anderson Coopers of the world, every football program at every school in the country is now somehow responsible for sexually abusing kids.

I think this is more about out of control kids alone than any real safety issue.

No, it's about the money.

It's always about the money.

CT has ads on the radio announcing that they'll have "enhanced patrols" all weekend looking for drunk drivers, speeders, etc. This has nothing to do with safety. CT is effectively bankrupt, it can't afford safety. Unless, of course, all those violations allow them to turn a profit after paying all that double and triple overtime.

I'd fly my 4 year old unattended (direct flight, I'd put her on, Gma would take her off) if the airlines would let me. I don't know about a train, there are more places to be taken alone on one. But she's 4, not 6 or 8.

"I'd fly my 4 year old unattended"

I'd wait a little older (not that the airlines give you a choice about it anyway). Not out of concern for being snatched or something like that, but for the far more likely disaster of the plane being rerouted and landing at another airport. A kid needs some fairly sophisticated coping tools to deal with it. (Enough emotional stability to be surrounded by strangers, has phone numbers for you and Gma both, and able and willing to make themselves known to gate agents or flight attendants if she feels she's been forgotten about it.) Eight years old or a precocious six? Sure, but four might be a little young.

Brian's right. It's all about the money. And it all started because of bullshit litigation. I swear to jumpinjesuonapogostick, I want to bitch-slap the lawyer who took on the McDonald's case, remember, the one where the woman sued McDonald's because she was stupid enough to put a hot cuppa coffee between her legs?? And she won??!?!? That case shoulda gotten thrown out of court the minute the judge heard that. Because if you're stupid enough to put a hot cuppa coffee between your legs, you DESERVE to get burned!!! What freakin' idiots we've become, to put up with all this horseshit. It's our fault, you know, for electing people that impose this shit on us. And it's their fault for kow-towing to the herd-mentality idiocy instead of using common sense.

OF COURSE the airlines wouldn't let a small child fly unattended, even on a non-stop... They're far too busy being rude to passengers, monitering your behavior for potential sign that the suburban housewife may be a terrorist, and snooping through the checked baggage that you just had to pay extra to transport. They don't have TIME to make sure the kid makes it off the plane. I mean, that bargain flight was only $450 for the one-way trip- you actually expect some service?

My cousins used to take Greyhound busses alone from Fort Worth to San Antonio when they were under 10. I don't know if that would be allowed now or not.

Sigh. Somehow the coffee case gets trotted out. The real details are here - http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/79371. Short version: woman burned, McD found partly at fault after arrogantly rebuffing multiple opportunities to resolve case cheaply.

Aaaaaanyway, back to topic: this will have no impact here in CA where train travel is more novelty than anything. But along the I95? Crazy. Frankly I didn't think Amtrak was flush enough to start turning away customers.

Whats arrogant about refusing to settle when you do not believe you were wrong?

Regarding the McDonalds coffee case:

•The plaintiffs were apparently able to document 700 cases of burns from McDonald's coffee over 10 years, or 70 burns per year. But that doesn't take into account how many cups are sold without incident. A McDonald's consultant pointed out the 700 cases in 10 years represents just 1 injury per 24 million cups sold! For every injury, no matter how severe, 23,999,999 people managed to drink their coffee without any injury whatever. Isn't that proof that the coffee is not "unreasonably dangerous"?

Oh please.

I was flying to Cali to visit my Grandpa alone at age 6. (1977)

My father was just telling me that he used to ride the city bus to kindergarten alone (early 50's).

My mother and aunt used to ride the county bus into town to take music and dance lessons at ages 5 and 6 (again, early 50's).

THE WORLD IS SAFER FOR CHILDREN NOW, PEOPLE!!!!!!

Ok, a little calmer now. Sorry for the yelling.

And, as one expert in the late 1980s said, the media reports on kidnapped children back then were "absurd.....if they were true, everyone would know a family whose child had been kidnapped."

@Snakeman99 - She should not have even been allowed to try to settle. The court should have said "You're stupid, go home."

Even if the coffee had been at the supposedly "safe" temperature, the length of exposure coupled with the sweatpants would have led to the same injuries.

Kid trips on a crack on the sidewalk? Sue someone!

You worked with Asbestos 50 years ago and now you have cancer? Sue someone!

You cut off your dick trying to fuck the chainsaw? Sue someone!

Thank you, Brian. That's exactly the point I was trying to make. Just because YOU do something stupid doesn't mean the rest of US have to pay for it. Taking personal responsibility for ourselves, rather than letting the government "handle" it, would go a long way towards reversing some of the idiocy. My brothers and our friends used to be out all the time in the summer, and NOT ONE of us was kidnapped - granted, we were all brats and no one wanted us, but still. We used to ride our bikes all over the place, take the bus to the (then outdoor and really a "shopping center") mall or even *gasp* New Haven! without incident. This was in the late 69s/early 70s. It's a travesty how the nanny state insists on interferring in our lives.

When I was 10 years old I gave myself a birthday present. I rode the NYC subway. Didn't go anywhere, just rode the subway. I wanted to be able to say I rode on every line, 1 to 7, A to R. (No Z train back then, and I ignored shuttles because I really didn't want to go to Far Rockaway for the S shuttle that existed then.) I did it by myself. Never told anyone.

At ten my grandparents said goodbye as I walked across the tarmac to the ladder of a DC-3, off to see my mother for a few summer weeks. Lovely time, not only my first flight but I got to sit by a really cute and attentive stewardess. Sweet.

Before that I routinely walked to my great-grandparents, a mile and a half often wandering stroll through what was still a mixed rural and suburban San Gabriel Valley. Saw cattle copulate, a cow give birth, and learned when a fence has a sign reading "electric don't touch" it really means "this is going to hurt like the dickens".

Then the Satanic cult scare of the 70s, the pre-school scare of the 80s, and every chil' is an abducted chil' in the 90s (OK, that ran throughout). None of it true.

deathbysnoosnoo has it right. It is as safe or safer now. The kids should be learning their limits, becoming street smart. They should be outside.

I have a co-worker who is 15 years my junior. When she was younger (10-12) her cousin was kidnapped, raped, and killed by a couple of sickos. Both are doing 25 to life.

She mentioned to me the other day how she sees all these kids (8-12) running around her little town and don't I think it was wrong? She has three children under 11.

I tried to get through her cognitive dissonance -- but other people showed up before I could break through it. They affirmed her view that it was more dangerous now than then.

None of them had heard of Albert Fish (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Fish) or any of the others from back then.

"Why not just put them in a crate with a chew toy and be done with it?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCR97weqHQY

Sio,

The carrier size was wrong. His ears were touching the top of carrier. ;-) (Google)

Delta still allows children to fly alone, down to some age (not sure what the age is). They have a special room for them at Hartsfield-Jackson where they wait for their connecting flights.