The Sweet Child of Mine Incident!So basically the story goes like this, it was a glorious spring day in Sydney and I was sitting at the traffic lights in the old 4WD that I shared with brothers. The particular lights I was sitting at are in Rozelle, next to the classiest 24 hour pub on the peninsula, The Bridge Hotel, I was waiting to turn right onto Victoria Road. For those of you that don't the area, it is 3 lanes that can turn right onto Victoria Road, which is a major arterial road in Sydney, three lanes each way and always busy.
Anyway, I was chilling in the car with the radio cranked when my favorite song at the time, the Gunner's classic, Sweet Child of Mine blessed the radio waves. Needless to say I was singing along (badly) and having a good old time. While I was at the lights another car was in the lane next to me, I glanced down and there was a young girl, probably 6 or 7 years old sitting in the passenger sit laughing at me carrying on like a right fool.
I smiled.
The dad (well I presume it was the dad, some middle aged dude anyway) who was driving saw me smile and decided that it would be safer to tear off through the red light across 4 lanes of traffic than sit at the lights with me in the car next to them.
What the hell he thought I was going to do, in broad daylight on a busy intersection with people all over the place is completely beyond me, but it does kind of show how paranoid some people are.
I've often wondered what the whole "never talk to strangers" is about. If you assume under 50% of strangers are good people, then you should encourage kids to talk to strangers, ask for help, etc. You should teach them to freak out *only* if there's only one or two adults and no one else around. Crowded areas should be the biggest safeguard for a child.
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