Reply #54: Egad. I did something similar once. [View All]

No, not in a car, at home.

Generally this kind of stuff happens when you're overtired, in a hurry, AND something has happened to interrupt your routine. In my case, my wife usually dropped our baby off at grandmas house when she left for work at 5AM. This particular morning, she had to go in early and left the baby at home for me to drop off. I ended up running late that morning, and in my rush to make it to work on time, I completely forgot that the "routine" had changed that morning. I was twenty miles down the road when I realized that I'd left my 9 month old son at home, alone, in his crib. Had any police officers seen me driving home, I'd have probably been arrested on the spot...I hit about 140mph at one point, was weaving through traffic like a madman, and blew at least two traffic lights...but I made it home in record time!

My son was still sleeping soundly in his crib when I got back home; he'd never even noticed that I was gone.

Those of you advocating punishment don't understand how futile it would be. We punish people to DISCOURAGE negative behavior, not to extract vengeance. I would have no problem imprisoning someone who deliberately locked their kid in a car, but accidents like this one aren't deliberate. You cannot discourage somebody from doing something they never intended to do in the first place. Punishing someone isn't going to make their memory better, and it's not going to reduce the stress in their life, so it will do NOTHING to reduce the possibility of this happening again. Any punishment given would simply be to extract vengeance, which I disagree with on principle.

As someone else pointed out, his wife will punish him far more than the police ever will. I know mine did (that was seven years ago, and I STILL hear about it whenever I disagree with any of her parenting methods).