Leaving your children in a car?

[Zara]

I'm just looking for opinions, and really what actual parents (or mums most likely here) do in real life. This came about from reading the Laurence Fox article, in which he said he was called something like a terrible human being by a PCSO for leaving his five year old son in the car, whist he "dashed" (his words as he's ever so posh!) into the chemist to get some medicine for his younger son (who was at home). Winston (the 5 year old) asked if he could wait in the car, and Laurence, reasoning that he was parked outside the chemist and would only be gone for a matter of minutes, allowed it. Upon returning a PCSO said his boy was crying and very upset, although when asked Winston said he was fine, so Dad couldn't see what the issue was. Words were exchanged, and Laurence posted how rude and silly the PCSO was for his remarks on his twitter feed, which got a lot of responses from people.

The most common answer was "would you leave them when you go and pay for petrol" which is something I hadn't even considered before, and got me and my other half talking about what we would do. I can't recall ever being taken out of the car/van with my dad as a kid, to go and pay and I remember (fondly!) being left in the car for many a reason, at my own request, at various different ages, sometimes with my siblings sometimes not. It didn't scar me for life, but of course the fact is I'm remembering it as a child of 7,8,9,10 not a baby or toddler, (they're a totally different story.)

But my actual question; is it ever acceptable to you to leave your child/ren in the car, have you ever done it, or been asked to by them and said yes/no to them? What age do you think its ok, Winston is 5, and really I don't know many five year olds to know their maturity level generally. I think I'd be worried about them getting out, as kids get impatient. I guess that goes to Dad saying he could see the car the whole time. But then it annoys me when people are in shops hurrying everyone up because they're parked on a double yellow, or "their kid is alone" But that's a whole other rant!
Kathy- so you would leave a child in a car then!
Y- I don't see that a bath and a car are comparable at all!