Letter: Front seat never a good place for children

Monday, June 16, 2003 | 9:04 a.m.

Regarding Dan Ormsby's June 10 letter, "Seatbelt law has tragic effect": His argument that the recent death of a valley child would have been avoided if the child had been allowed to ride in the front seat of his parent's van (thus, theoretically, preventing his father from making the deadly mistake of forgetting him in the vehicle on a day with a 105-degree temperature) is so absurd that even the most ignorant of people can see its faulty reasoning.

Yes, Mr. Ormsby, perhaps the child would have survived a little longer if he had been allowed to ride up front rather than be strapped into a safety seat in the back seat. But this solution is merely avoiding one death sentence while blatantly inviting another. What should the father have done with this 7-month-old child in the front seat -- restrained him with a seatbelt designed for an adult? If the boy and his father were in a collision, what good would sitting in the front seat be if the baby were decapitated by his seatbelt?

Perhaps Mr. Ormsby would suggest that the child's safety seat should have been installed in the front passenger seat. That might have prevented his death from eight hours of exposure to blistering temperatures, but what if he and his father were in a fender-bender on their way home? Would having the baby in a safety seat where his neck would have been immediately snapped as the airbag deployed really have been a lifesaving alternative?

The answer is no. Having the child in the front seat or out of his safety seat would have put him in just as much danger as leaving him in the van for eight hours. There is no excuse for negligence even when it is unintentional.

JENNIFER TRACEY