It puts neighbors in a bad situation. Yesterday there was a kid, probably about eight years old, outside my house wandering around by himself, yelling at passing cars. There are lots of kids in my neighborhood and I'm accustomed to them being loud when they're out playing but this kid was alone, going out into the road, and just acting a bit weird. It wasn't a kid I knew so I couldn't call the parents but calling the police also seemed like a questionable thing to do. I'm near a speed bump so cars generally go slow through here but there are other parts of the street when they often have more speed. I didn't want to approach him (all manner of trouble can come from an adult approaching a child they don't know), police seemed like overkill, but being out in the road, especially since he was walking away from the speed bump area, seemed potentially dangerous. Eventually he went into a house across the street five or six houses down which recently sold so probably is a new family to the neighborhood.

Still not sure what I should have done if he hadn't gone home or really if this is a problem waiting to happen. At his age I wandered much further from home and put myself in worse potential danger at times, though I probably never yelled at passing cars. No one ever called the police on me though there were a few times when an adult told me to stop doing whatever I was up to or go somewhere else.