Safe driving and emergencies
You have to run into a shop for a few minutes. Under what condition may you leave your five-year-old in the car?
- Only if someone at least 12 years old stays with them. Correct answer
- Only if you leave a window slightly open.
- Only if the child is secured in a child passenger restraint system.
Why
The line the handbook draws is a person, not a length of time or a precaution. Leaving a child of six or younger alone in a vehicle is illegal, and the only thing that stops the child counting as alone is someone at least 12 watching over them. Leaving a window slightly open changes nothing, and the handbook says so in as many words: the temperature inside a parked vehicle can rise rapidly in the sun even if a window is left slightly open, and the same warning covers animals. A correctly fitted child passenger restraint system is required whenever the child rides with you, but a restraint is not supervision and it does not make leaving them behind lawful.
Where this comes from
California Driver's Handbook, June 2025 edition. The correct answer is Only if someone at least 12 years old stays with them.
The rule behind this one
Safe driving and emergencies in California goes through the whole topic, with the page of the California Driver's Handbook behind every rule.
More on safe driving and emergencies
- Your car stalls on a railroad crossing, a train is coming and the warning lights are flashing. Once you are out of the car, which way should you run?
- An oncoming vehicle's headlights are so bright that you can barely see the road. Where should you look?
- How far back from the air bag cover should you sit, and how is that distance measured?
- You are using hand-to-hand (push/pull) steering. How should you hold the wheel?