It's a mother walking with an untethered toddler. It terrifies me.
A toddler is unpredictable greased lightning and can run into the street in a nanosecond and any mother that walks on the side of the road without tethering the toddler should have her head examined.
Actually school kids that have even finished first grade generally have had enough training to know enough to pay attention to traffic although there are occasional exceptions to the rule. Toddlers are too young to be on the street untethered.
Needless to say, whenever a ball of any type comes out onto the street the answer is an instant dead stop. I don't care who is playing what kind of ball. It could be preschool tackle football or the octogenarian whiffle ball league. I stop. Period. The End. Even if there's a fully loaded semi tailgating me.
Maybe 20 years ago I saw a baseball coming toward me. I locked them up, set the hand brake, bailed out, caught the ball and played for home. It resulted in a double play which I am rather proud of.
Still, all in all the worst thing is an untethered toddler. I drop to bare steerageway and if the oncoming lane is clear I swing into it and creep past at a slow crawl until I'm good and clear.
It's funny because a lot of people tell me they do drive faster when the kids are in school and maybe I do but you can bet your boots I drop to nothing at the sight of an untethered toddler.
And to answer your question, when I see a mother with a tethered toddle I do ask the mother if it's a rescue. That one is in the script. I have to. You're supposed to do that.
I know I would rather hit and kill a child, than to have some poor truck driver kill me.
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