[RBS] a thought from yesterday's parsha

[Phil'n'Chanie Rosenfelder]

As we listened to the  children riding their "bimba"s down the street
- nahal shimshon: curvy street with lousy visibility - we were struck
with a thought from this weeks' parasha:

Could it be , that allowing one's child to play in the street,
especially in a manner that makes them practically invisible to
drivers, is an example of "lifnei iveir"?

It's nice to think that we live in a religious neighbourhood, so no
one drives on shabbat, but even religious people sometimes need to  go
to hospital on shabbat.
Other shabbat drivers include:  ambulances (whose drivers have a worse
view of short people in the road) , soldiers with emergency call-ups
(yes, those happen all the time, not just in war), hasa'ot of hospital
staff, police patrols.   And these are all drivers who SHOULD NOT have
to slow down to go around a slalom course of kids.  That would be a
tragic cause of a woman giving birth in her car or a man dying of a
heart attack because there are only 11 minutes, or a terrorist making
it past Aviezer and into the rama.