Any reasonable person can see that there's much greater danger in allowing a child to ride in a car on a highway--which no doubt would be considered perfectly acceptable by these police. Look at this visualization of cause of death by age: https://wisqars.cdc.gov/data/lcd/home. For those kids, the number one cause of death is "unintentional injury," the biggest component of which is motor vehicle crashes. Unfortunately, these police wield incredible power in our legal system, and, as a lawyer, I don't see any easy fix. It makes me sad that I'll be raising my child in this kind of environment.