Flinging your child out of your car

On a walk this morning, a car went through the intersection and as my eyes followed it, the whole situation became very surreal. It was like a scene from a movie where the protagonist sees himself/his dead brother/the murderer zoom by in a car. The shot goes at half-speed as the menacing face passes by in slow motion, eyes focused on you the viewer the whole time---until it goes back to normal speed and the car races down the road.

In this particular scene of harsh reality a mother was in the passenger seat of a car, holding her 2 year-old daughter in her lap. Neither of them wore seatbelts---much less was the little one where she belonged in the back seat, in a car seat. They're all laughing at something. They appear to have no idea how dangerous this is.

I was so wishing they'd been waiting at the light. Even if it pisses people off, I still prefer to go up to their car, make them pull down the window, and tell them they really need to get a seatbelt on their kid. "So the Garda won't pull you over," I explain.

I'm not riled up enough to say, "So you won't see your lovely child hurling through windscreen and out onto the tarmac to die." But dear God do I want to say it.

I have this hunch they'd look at me like I was a nutter and drive away as fast as they can. Still with their kid not strapped in.