What an odd condition of the law!

[elfs]

Yamaraashi-chan yesterday asserted that it was "illegal" for me to leave her in the car. I asked her if she knew there was such a law in Washington State, or if she had just heard this third-hand. She was sure it existed.

Well, I went and looked it up.

RCW 9.91.060: Leaving a child unattended in a parked vehicle.

Every person having the care and custody, whether temporary or permanent, of minor children under the age of twelve years, who shall leave such children in a parked automobile unattended by an adult while such person enters a tavern or other premises where vinous, spirituous, or malt liquors are dispensed for consumption on the premises shall be guilty of a gross misdemeanor.

I wonder why the "condition" is there at the end? I would bet most kids who've died baking in a car were left there by someone who was forgetful for some reason other than drink.

It's also illegal to leave a child in a car if the motor is running.

Comments

[mundens.livejournal.com]

Even over here in New Zealand there are parents who drive down to the pub on a Saturday afternoon, leave their children, sometimes babies, in the car, and drink all night and then drive home.

I suspect that the law is as much designed to preempt the "drive home drunk with your kids" bit as it is to prevent the "leaving in the car" bit. Sure you can charge them with drunk driving if you catch them afterwards but the kids are already at risk then, so it's probably better to come up with a way of allowing law enforcemnt to preempt it when they cruise past a bar carpark at night.

I don't think we need a specific law over here, because they can be charged under general negligence laws, but I can understand some state legislator gettng irate at a specific occurence and drafting your law.

Whereas leaving the kids in the car while popping into the corner store to pick up a bottle of milk and a loaf of bread is just efficient, so if some condition on the law didn't exist, that would also be illegal.

Note your law specifically doesn't make it illegal to pop into a bottle store and pick up some drinks to take away, which is good, as one _can't_ take ones kids into a bottle store, as if the laws governing them are anything like what they are over here, it it is a licensed premise which only those over (what ever your drinking age is) can enter.

[kingfox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, crap, I need to get me one of those anti-theft devices you call kids!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Not that I'm going to argue with you, necessarily, but as a tangent...

I haven't left my kids in the car. Yamaraashi-chan merely expressed an interest in not going with Omaha into a store, and since I was going she said, "But you can't leave me here by myself. It's against the law."

Omaha said, "Well then, I guess you'll just have to come with us then. But who told you it was against the law?" Since it was a matter of some discussion last night, I chose to look it up.

[mathochist.livejournal.com]

I was told it was illegal by a cop outside a gas station back when I had three smalls in the car (two of them asleep) and was standing beside my car trying to figure out how I was going to pay for gas, back before there were at-the-pump ATM swipe machines. So either something has changed since then, or it was a local law (not statewide). At any rate, it's still a bad idea.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

As surprising as it may sound, sometimes cops don't know the law. They may have "just heard," it may be "common knowledge," or whatever. Or, even more surprising, sometimes they just make stuff up because they don't expect you to know what the law really says and they think it's a good idea.

[mathochist.livejournal.com]

I was told it was illegal by a cop outside a gas station back when I had three smalls in the car (two of them asleep) and was standing beside my car trying to figure out how I was going to pay for gas, back before there were at-the-pump ATM swipe machines. So either the cop was wrong, or something has changed since then, or it was a local law (not statewide). At any rate, it's still a bad idea.