Yes, it would be good to know if something was wrong with the vehicle. But it was operated by a five-year-old. Odds are overwhelming that it was operator error.

My observations weren't an indictment on all grandparents or on who splurges the grandbabies, kat. It was an observation that the generation that raised many of today's parents were the product of a culture in which all experienced great strides in technological progress and general common sense doesn't seem to have kept pace.

In the last 75 years automobile ownership has become almost universal in the U.S., and after that market saturation came the affordable small but powerful engines for more than functionally important machinery for farm and industry. Small two-stroke and other small engine vehicles have become almost as ubiquitous as cars. With all of these luxury machines we seem to see a growing lack of respect for the dangers of things mechanical and an absence of the caution that goes with the ability to move faster than you can walk.

Add this largess to the highly influential marketplace that pushes the idea that if you can do it (whatever "it" might be), you should do it, and the younger the better and you can see where all of this is headed.

SRS