Is it Legal to Leave Your Child in the Car?
By: Julie Musgrave
Updated: June 17, 2009
A close call out at South Plains Mall yesterday. A mom accidently locked her one-year-old child in the car for five minutes. Fortunately, the child is okay -- but even five minutes is dangerous.
But surprisingly, it's legal.
State law says it's only an offense if a child younger than 7 is left in a car longer than 5 minutes -- without being attended by someone older than 14. Even then, it's a class C misdeameanor with a maximum fine of $500 dollars.
And, while it may be legal in some cases, summertime really isn't the best time to leave your kid behind obviously -- even if it's just for those quick errands.
Captain Greg Stevens, Lubbock Police Department: "Common sense tells you that if the outside is three digits, then the temperature inside the car, especially with high humidity, is going to be substantially higher than that."
Stevens says best advice is just take the child with you, you never know what you'll run into on that quick errand.
