Whether it is child abuse or not - we shall not be the judges on this forum as we were not with the family (as has been pointed out elsewhere it appears not comme il faut to comment on other people's intents).

However I will break the above mentioned rule by pointing out that following an organized ride (for what purpose??) is not very smart (although I see another thread with just the topic) for environmental and half a dozen other reasons.

Imagine 3000 riders with 3000 sag vehicles. Dumb.

And even dumber to give the kid an incentive to (perhaps? we weren't there, remember) whine about getting a ride.