Much more likely to be a case of otherwise good kids, acting very poorly on the train. Otherwise, they would not have even been noticed.There was a case in Washinton State last year where a few GOOD kids, 15, 15 & 16 were travelling alone and they were actually KICKED OFF THE TRAIN at a place that was between their departure and arrival station.
Back in the 70's my then 5? year old niece was supposed to wait for the flight attendant to escort her off the plane where my parents and I were waiting. She apparently did not want to wait and luckily we saw her walk through the jetway door w/o her escort. So, planes are not 100% fool proof when it comes to sending minors alone. But, yes, they're a lot safer than trains.Airlines do have an advantage as they can keep the kid cooped up in a closed room and an assigned seat with more or less constant visual obversation.
Something similar happened to me. The attendant told me to wait here and I waited for ages (at least in the perception of a small child) and she didn't come back so I walked away by myself. My mother, who was picking me up, was quite surprised to see me by myself and alarmed that I wasn't being taken closer care of. I also had two bottles of red wine in my bag that were a present to my parents from the people I'd been staying with. I can imagine the uproar that would have caused today.Back in the 70's my then 5? year old niece was supposed to wait for the flight attendant to escort her off the plane where my parents and I were waiting. She apparently did not want to wait and luckily we saw her walk through the jetway door w/o her escort. So, planes are not 100% fool proof when it comes to sending minors alone. But, yes, they're a lot safer than trains.Airlines do have an advantage as they can keep the kid cooped up in a closed room and an assigned seat with more or less constant visual obversation.
As the post #4 in this thread shows, this statement is simply incorrect. A 13-year-old CAN travel unaccompanied under the guidelines setUnder 16, NO GO. There was a case in Washinton State last year where a few GOOD kids, 15, 15 & 16 were travelling alone and they were actually KICKED OFF THE TRAIN at a place that was between their departure and arrival station. Don't try it. 16 is the age. Period.
Statistically children are much safer now than when I was a child, and yet somehow we're more convinced than ever that strangers are lurking in every shadow and around every corner to steal and abuse kids. Friends and family who are in unsupervised contact with our children on a regular basis? Nah, we're not worried about them. It's the invisible boogieman that we'd much rather worry about, statistics be damned.So I suppose a 5-year-old could escort a senile 95-year-old grandmother without violating this policy.
Overprotectiveness of children turned into byzantine rules. I'm a believer in free-range children myself.
That wasn't a train. It was a stagecoach.Reminds me that when I was 10, I took a solo trip on the L&N from Montgomery to Mobile (about 3.5 hours). My mother was hesitant, and she spied a group of nuns boarding the same train -- presumably on their way to New Orleans for something. She asked the nuns to keep an eye on me. And they did, about every 10 minutes. It got to be funny for them and for me.
This is positively incredible. I could easily understand Amtrak denying the underage girl passage. However once she was aboard the train, she was in the custody of Amtrak. By putting her off at an intermediate stop, the conductor put her into a potentially dangerous situation that she may well have not been prepared for. Remember that she is a minor.The incident in Washington was about a year ago. Three girls going from Olympia to Portland to celebrate one's birthday. Olympia is not an AMTRAK staffed station (Its all volunteers) and the parents had no idea about the unaccompanied minor policy. The train left Oly and the conductor collected tickets. He asked the girls how old they were, and they politely answered truthfully. One was under 16. The next stop was Centralia and the conductor put the under age girl off at that stop. The other 2 chose to go with their friend. The mistake in this situation was the station agent "was too busy" to deal with this issue, and he/she had a lot of head end work and was going off shift, so the girls werent properly handed off to a responsible party. They wandered around downton Centralia for a few hours before one of the sets of parents were able to get there & pick them up.
How do you know Amtrak isn't being sued?It seems to me that Amtrak is lucky that they aren't being sued because of this. If Amtrak (or the conductor) wanted to do something about the situation, they should deal with either the person who put them on the train or the ticket agent who sold the ticket.
This is a good post making an excellent point.Statistically children are much safer now than when I was a child, and yet somehow we're more convinced than ever that strangers are lurking in every shadow and around every corner to steal and abuse kids. Friends and family who are in unsupervised contact with our children on a regular basis? Nah, we're not worried about them. It's the invisible boogieman that we'd much rather worry about, statistics be damned.
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