At seven I went to school and back home on foot and alone, about a mile, everyday. I did once have a close call with a car that didn't stop for a crosswalk.

Are parents supposed to accompany their kids at all time until they are 18?

“In such cases, adults must be held accountable for their responsibilities to ensure a safe environment for their children,” police said in a statement.

That's ... beyond callous and (hopefully) has no legal standing, even in the USA.

Let's fix it:

The "adults" who continue building car-friendly environments that are positively dangerous to pedestrians need to be held accountable for their responsibilities to ensure a safe environment.

They gotta blame the people who designed the city. If these kids were a small fraction of the same age and in Japan they would be on TV for braving their first solo trip into the market to buy a vegetable for dinner. It would be a cute TV show called "Old Enough" on Netflix with English subtitles instead of a cruel reality on this side of the same planet where a kid is now dead.

That part of it isn't the fault of the parents, but the fault of the society we have created.

Btw that TV show is a few decades old but my point is that the world is possible. We don't need to be like Japan was in that TV show, but we do need more walkable cities.

A while back I watched a video about jaywalking. The idea was that, before cars were very common, people would just walk around the street and cars had to go around them. As cars became more common, car owners wanted to get rid of the people on the street, so they invented the term and offense jaywalking. Take something that poor people do (like walking instead of driving) and turn it into an offense.

This is basically the same thing. Make the parents responsible for what was a driver's fault on a road that shouldn't have been built the way it was in what must be a residential area - given that the kids just crossed the street from house to store. You have to turn the victim into the perpetrator, because looking at facts makes the wrong people look guilty.

there is no evidence of speeding or wrongdoing on the part of the driver, therefore no charges have been filed.

He hit a pedestrian. If you cannot react to a pedestrian entering the road unexpectedly, especially at a crosswalk, you are, by definition, driving recklessly.

The 76-year-old driver will not face any charges.

This doesn't serve justice, in any way.

Why were the children trying to walk between crosswalks? I'd bet because the only crosswalks anywhere in the area are at stoplights and way too far apart. A painted cross wall at minimum, or a HAWK light that stops vehicle traffic should have been there. But those are too expensive until multiple people are killed by traffic, it takes a lot of blood to get human-cebtric infrastructure installed in this country.

The crosswalk directly leading to the middle school near me was known by the school and the neighborhood to be dangerous due to traffic speed, and the community had been fighting for a HAWK light to be installed by the county for nearly a decade. They even widened and replaced the road during that time and still refused to install it (although they did install the underground conduit necessary when doing the roadwork). It took 4 children total being killed by vehicles outside of school hours before they finally agreed to install a HAWK light there.

Charging the parents doesn't do any public good. I doubt they're going to find a full jury that could convict unless there's some underlying information about the parents trying to kill the kids or some shit like that. I can't imagine a jury of 12 would unanimously convict.l based on the info provided.

What??? In Switzerland we walked to school by ourselves at age of 4.

Sounds like evil inception, first the nightmare of losing your child and then the nightmare of possibly losing your job and house etc. I hope they at least don't have to go through the nightmare of prison (which they would likely have to go through alone, since there is no couples-prison). Evil evil evil

Gastonia police declined to comment to NBC News, but said in a statement that “there is no evidence of speeding or wrongdoing on the part of the driver, therefore no charges have been filed. The driver continues to be cooperative and the incident remains under active investigation by the Gastonia Police Department’s Traffic Division.”

Fucking insane. Ancient driver must be good, we must blame someone. How about the folks? They seem to be having a good run!

I'm SO mad at this story. There is no reason to charge the parents. As others have stated, helicoptering kiddos is detrimental, and they need to be allowed to roam their environment -- That can come at the cost of danger, but we cannot be expected to grow with 0 risk.

Sure, as a parent, you can state: 'don't go there', and 'always look both ways', but kids are kids and there's only so much you can enforce without being overbearing. In this scenario, without video evidence, there's no clear conclusion about fault for either the driver or the child.

I'm okay with letting the driver off (criminally, let insurance pay the family but don't put the driver in jail) and acknowledging this as an accidental death, especially since he stuck around and is complying. Charging the parents for negligence, though, is just fucking brutal when they are suffering the loss of a child, not to mention the impact on the older son, who probably is feeling an unreasonable amount unreasonable of guilt: "I could have held his hand; I could have reminded him of the road..." (not his quotes, my presumed internal dialog). Again, as others have stated, this is a city planning problem, not a parental one: If there was a way to walk to a grocery store that didn't cross a 4-lane road, that'd be a better option, but there are plenty of places where that is not possible.

These parents do NOT need the extra burden of being held legally liable for an accident and anyone blaming them for this without knowing them personally and being able to describe other aspects of their parent as negligent is just an asshole.

They got it backwards. I will hold the road planners, the city government, the driving license issuer, and the driver responsible. It start with poorly designed roads and ends with poor driver training. The parents are the victims here.

This some serious bullshit not even the cops can't be that heartless ... Oh wait the parents are black ... in North Carolina ...

Can we start labeling if something is US. Cause this feels very US. Have you guys tried sidewalks?

USA is the premiere shithole country.

edit: It's kind of amazing how many people in here take NBC quoting cops as fact. The cops' tale is obviously bullshit as usual. They're just reciting whatever the old man said. Ofc he thinks the kid just jumped in front of him. The old coot probably had no idea what was even happening: "I was just driving along when this colored boy jumped under my truck...." Cops are like, "Yes, sir, we understand. It happens all the time. Best we can do is lock up the parents." ---> NBC.

edit2: Seriously tho, I feel bad for the driver too. This is a good example of how car dependency is not good for the elderly. Let's get that driver out of a car and onto a train. Ok I gotta get on with my life...

This is absolute bullshit, just because the US is incapable of making good walkable neighbourhoods doesn't mean the parents are at fault of letting their childeren be normal.

City makes walking on foot a death sentence, offloads responsibility on people foolish enough to produce life in a world that wants us to die.

NC is a hellscape of stroads and highways. Walking anywhere there is a stressful situation. I'd walk down to the local park and needed to cross 2 lanes of traffic at a crosswalk. The speed limit was 35 yet people flew through doing 50 and this is with medians and a crosswalk. The only way to cross was to begin walking out and hopefully they brake for you.

Here's the road

https://maps.app.goo.gl/MXtKFCAxCwW5YrTEA

I walked two blocks between home and school every day when I was 7. This is insane.

“In such cases, adults must be held accountable for their responsibilities to ensure a safe environment for their children,” police said in a statement.

Okay, I get the rational behind it.

Gastonia police declined to comment to NBC News, but said in a statement that “there is no evidence of speeding or wrongdoing on the part of the driver, therefore no charges have been filed. The driver continues to be cooperative and the incident remains under active investigation by the Gastonia Police Department’s Traffic Division.”

Except when you drive a car, fuck it! You can do whatever you want. As a driver of a vehicle that can kill people, you don't have be responsble for anything.

Only in 'Murica...

Shit, anti-vax parents must be worried now /s

Never blame the asshole in the car. Always blame someone else.

I bet it's in a Republican shithole city in a Republican shithole state?

I don't even have to check