Not everyone had undisciplined parents who had brains in neutral.
When I was about five, (1959)my mother left me in the car in front of the grocery store. It was very common back then. I saw the guy next to me move the collumn shifter to leave, so I did the same. The car was on a slight incline and it started to roll back out of the angled parking space. I distinctly remember trying to turn the steering wheel as hard as I could to get it to turn away from the cars it was backing towards. It came to a stop in the middle of the pavement between the two rows of parked cars.
This was in the days of no locking steering wheels and no locking shifter on a car with an automatic.
Not everyone had stay at home parents and both of mine were old-school. Undisciplined...hah!