Posted on 06/11/2018 7:00:54 AM PDT by rickmichaels
Five-month-old twins in Virginia; a one-year-old in Tennessee; a three-year-old in Indiana; a nine-month-old in Texas; a three-year-old in Ontario; a nine-month-old in Tennessee.
All dead, left behind in a blistering hot car within the past few weeks. I sorely doubt any of them were left intentionally, and there might be no more hotly debated topic than intent regarding these tragedies. A six-year-old saved from a hot car in Hamilton, Ontario by passersby had been left in the car on purpose. A medal to those who meddle. Thank you.
But how do you solve a problem nobody thinks they have?
In the U.S., 751 children have died of heatstroke in cars since 1998. The average is 37 per year; the Canadian average is four to six deaths annually. The headlines are gut-wrenching, the stories unbearable. Whether you have children or not, the death of our most vulnerable could only fail to resonate if you have a stone for a heart.
Two manufacturers – GM and Hyundai – have entered the ring with possible solutions, and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of aftermarket gadgets available. Middle school kids make it their science fair project. Some inventors approach it from a tech angle – an app on your phone, a sensor to light up your keyfob – and some from a more rudimentary one – a stuffed toy on the seat as a reminder, additional mirrors.
But this problem goes far deeper than a hunt for a solution. While there may be an overload of suggestions on the supply side of the equation, there is almost no appetite for a solution on the buying end. Simply put, nobody believes they would ever be capable of forgetting something as precious as their child in a car, and therefore they have no use for a device, upgrade, or stock feature that could prevent it.
I’ve written on the topic before, and I’ve locked myself in a hot car to show how excruciating it is even for an adult in controlled circumstances. And every time, without fail, commenters will predictably assert the parents of dead children are negligent, period.
No wonder few are interested in layering in some safety feature that may save some lives. To do so is to admit good parents can become trapped in the horror of being responsible for the death of their own child.
Those U.S. statistics at the comprehensive website noheatstroke.org reveal that incidents of loss can occur one of three main ways:
• A child forgotten by a caregiver/parent – 54 per cent
• A child playing in an unattended vehicle – 27 per cent
• A child intentionally left in a vehicle – 18 per cent
Go to a baby shower and give the expectant parents a baby monitor that will allow them to hear and see their child at all times while also tracking the baby’s breathing and vital signs. Give them a clip they can attach to a car seat to remind them if they’ve left a sleeping baby behind by accident (various aftermarket products are a version of this), and expect to be ushered out of the room by horrified attendees. That is the problem we’re facing in trying to eradicate that first category.
First, it can happen. To anyone. And it has. The best reporting on the subject was by Gene Weingarten a decade ago in the Washington Post, and it remains a brilliant depiction of what can happen to the human brain – for all of us. You are not an exception. Unfortunately, it seems the same hard wiring that can lead to unimaginable tragedy also makes it impossible for us to accept our own fallibility. Numbers peak in hotter summer months and southern states, but it happens all over and the numbers don’t get better. Whatever we’re doing isn’t working.
GM introduced a chime system on some of their models. If you’ve opened the rear doors within ten minutes before turning on the engine, you will receive a chime and visual reminder to check the backseat. Hyundai is debuting a system featuring sensors that detect motion in the backseat. Both systems are laudable, but drivers tune chimes out very quickly, and children under age two – half the recorded deaths – don’t move around much if they’ve fallen asleep. By the time a distressed child could set off a sensor, the temperature in the car could have spiked to horrific highs. A car heats up like an oven.
I’m grateful for any manufacturer who is spending on R&D in this field, but I’d rather see stock sensors based on weight. No, I don’t know how to do that. But the fact that 27 per cent of deaths arise from children playing in vehicles they’ve gained access to, there’s another reason to make the tech we believe we need for entertaining and protecting us to be used to protect our kids. By the way: always lock your car in your driveway.
It’s a sad irony that deaths started rising when we started putting our tiniest children in the safest place – rear facing in the back seat. I don’t know any parent who wouldn’t do what’s best for their children; and that includes hundreds in North American who have suffered the most crushing loss of all.
We don’t refuse to buy smoke detectors because we would never burn our houses down. We buy them because it’s a cheap way to make sure we can protect our families in the event of a tragedy. We need to shift the thinking from “I would never do that” to “how can we prevent this?”
” I sorely doubt any of them were left intentionally”
I do. What kind of idiot forgets they have a child in a car?? None. They simply didn’t want to take the child with them.
Low IQ crowd.
“you forgot your child in the car.”
“He’s twenty, he’ll figure it out.”
Was astounded a few years ago to look up the statistics.
Big Cowardly Media never reports more than the obligatory three or four incidents per summer, because if they published all thirty-something cases every year, they’d lose subscribers.
“He’s twenty, he’ll figure it out.”
LOL. Thanks for the morning laugh.
We are on the ‘Nanny State’ extreme right now. And yes, technology will do far more to protect children than any punitive law. But aribtrary laws which demand tech will stunt innovation.
People want a ‘quick fix’ for everything. In the end, the resulting laws are like old furniture held together with bungi cords and duct tape.
I could. Fact is even smart people can forget something that is vitally important to them, given the right chain of events. Add to that the fact that it is a known situation that people will not remember the last several miles of driving their car. It’s a human brain thing. It’s about going on autopilot with routine tasks, and a slight change in the routine can sometimes cause a person to forget to do somethin that is critical. It’s also about multitasking.
Fortunately, it doesn’t happen often.
Perhaps parents would not forget their infants if they put something they actually value back there with them.
I know that there have been cases like this; we had cases where women left kids in hot cars to gamble or have their hair done. But I think in other instances people are just too stressed and harried these days.
It’s not intentional, but what do you expect in a culture that expects the government to protect us from all harm, except the knife of the abortionist?
The government mandated the child seats, with straps, with stringent regulations. That is good. But no amount of rules or laws can restore to people their now-lost parental bonding and common sense.
How do solve the problem: high profile prosecutions with prison time upon conviction.
Problem solved.
It happens when you don’t ALWAYS have the baby. That is the worst. To not remember which parent is taking a child to day care.
Since I always had my babies with me always, I was very unlikely to do it since THEBABYTHEBABYTHEBABY was my world. I never arrived anywhere without KNOWING the baby was back there. Even on the very rare occasions when I went alone somewhere, I’d have to freak and remember I went there without the baby when I saw the empty car seat at the end.
And in fact, I usually was driving while wearing an empty baby carrier around me. Get to the destination, pop baby in carrier, boom.
Traditional parenting where one person does 99% of all baby care actually keeps MAMABABY as a unit like intended by nature, and she is not likely to forget her baby. But once you start having dad take her some days and you take her others, you might well be too sleep deprived to know every second if it’s Tuesday or weds.
I saw two seasoned citizens driving their obligatory Crown Victoria the other day. There was a big sticker on the passenger window for when they left their dog in the car. It read “A/C on. Don’t break glass”
I guess they must have gotten sick of replacing windows.
That said, I’d have no hesitation on busting a window if I saw a kid in distress. I’m not a pet guy, but I’d do the same for a dog. Have to think about it for a while if it was a cat. (just a joke, put the flamethrower down)
Welcome.
“....... how do you solve a problem nobody thinks they have?”.
Take away their drugs, children and pets too.
Bingo!
Excellent post.
Stress can cause chaos in anyone’s brain activity. And other distractions.
A person thinks, “I’ll just be a minute.”
Then something happens.
We have yahoos out here who will bust a window if the kid is left alone for a few seconds.
Maybe they should be required to wait for five minutes? [or something along those lines]. And if they record it the parent pays a bounty to them or something for busting their window. Just sayin’.
I would do that now even if I was the parent that usually dropped off the baby/child. You only have to be distracted once.
, there’s another reason to make the tech we believe we need for entertaining and protecting us to be used to protect our kids.
Here in south Virginia we have guys busting windows and so forth to rescue kids who aren’t even overheated. It’s getting extreme.
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