Experts: Child deaths in hot cars result of forgetfulness (DUH, Alert!

Associated Press ^ | 08/25/03 | Staff Writer

[discostu]

I'm a very forgetful person, I have to look up my work number in our address book to give it out, but I have NEVER forgotten a living creature (person or animal) in a car in any weather. That's way past forgetful and deep into "too stupid to survive for long".

[Irene Adler]

Like QA and you, I am also a very forgetful person. Mr. Adler is the organized one in the family, and I am very grateful for his strength in this regard.

When our two girls were little (they are now 26 and 22), I was busier than I should have been with college teaching on a schedule that changed every semester. Mr. Adler and I had to work out a different schedule between the two of us to take care of the girls each term. We had the two of us, two sitters who were living saints, and Montessori school, and later, public school with picking the kids up and running them from one of these places to another.

Thank God, I never left a small one in the car, but I did forget to pick the girls up from activities a couple of times, when they were older girls.

I must say that I am with QA on this one. If I had been forced to put my babies in the back seat due to airbags, I just can't swear I wouldn't ever have forgotten one of them on a day when we were "off-schedule" for some reason or other. I truly shudder to think what might have happened.

I have always been a very responsible mom, and both of the girls have turned out really well, but I am a very, very absent minded person. I have to work very hard to stay as organized as I do. It's not that I don't care about my daughters; I live for my girls.

But, QA is right, people just think differently. Putting my purse in the back seat of the car with the baby is something I will definitely do when I become a Grandma. It's a good idea for us absent-minded professors. It's certainly not that I would ever care more about the purse than about an infant! But, I expect my purse to be in my hands when I get out of the car and lock it, and putting it in the back seat is a good idea. None of us is perfect, and we all use various aids to help us fulfill our responsibilities. The purse idea is a good one, IMHO.

[gitmo]

I think you're exactly right. The baby belongs in the front seat unless there's an adult who can ride in the back.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Federal Law will one day mandate a mechanism to initiate air flow and cooler temperatures in the event a vehicle's interior reaches life-threatening conditions.

[discostu]

I guess to me the thing is if you know you're forgetful (and by the time you're old enough to make babies you're old enough to have cataloged your weaknesses), then you're old enough to learn to compensate. And when you're in charge of a living being that's the time when you need to focus your efforts on making sure you don't do anything that would harm or kill them. Anybody that can't do that is a damned idiot. This isn't like forgeting the milk or something that will only be a minor inconvenience, it's the single most important task a person can undertake and it deserves every trick a person can muster to do it right. Anybody that has a combination of forgetfulness and raw stupidity so extreme that they can't come up with a way to not leave the kids in the car to die should give the kids up for adoption.

[Question_Assumptions]

I'm a very forgetful person, I have to look up my work number in our address book to give it out, but I have NEVER forgotten a living creature (person or animal) in a car in any weather. That's way past forgetful and deep into "too stupid to survive for long".

I'm sure that there are many forgetful people who don't drop their children off and do notice them in the back seat before going to work. We don't hear about those people because their children don't die. But all it takes is essentially one mistake for it to be fatal. I'd like to think that I wouldn't forget a living creature, either, but I can imagine a sequence of events that could allow it to happen and I'd rather have the reminders and cues and to simply assume that I won't forget -- just to be sure. Because a child is that important.

[splach78]

Two weeks ago, a professor's 10-month-old son died after being locked in a car at the University of California at Irvine for more than three hours while temperatures were in the 90s. The youngster's father, Mark J. Warschauer, was described as a doting parent by neighbors. No immediate charges were filed.

This alone disturbs me greatly. 3 hours?

[splach78]

The back seat is PROVEN to be the safest place for children under twelve.

[cmak9]

Actually, when I have children, I plan to put them in the front seat & turn off the airbags so that there is no chance of this.

Is that a legal option? I think most of this is coming from more government regulations requiring children be put in the back seat. Law of unintended consequences at work.

[SouthParkRepublican]

”Are we that far gone as a society, that we remember our purse or briefcase and not our babies?”

About 7 years ago I was driving to work and it struck me that I had to drop my daughter off at daycare first. I had passed the daycare center by about 10 miles.

I know it sounds strange but when you are into the ritual day in and day out, it’s possible to forget that you have a sleeping kid in the back seat for a few moments. Luckily I was still a half hour away from my work so I just turned around and dropped her off but boy it makes you wonder and count your blessings.

[splach78]

I've only been a mother for 3+ years, and I have never ONCE forgotten my kids were in the car.

[discostu]

I'm ont against reminders and cues, for forgetful people they're a necessity. What I'm against is any form of acceptance, part of being an adult is knowing limitations and dealing with them, another part of being an adult is prioritizing life and knowing where to put the extra effort. People who forget their kids in the car have failed on both counts. The people should be taking their own steps to compensate.

[dc27]

Its all the fault of those capitalistic car makers. They should be forced to make cars that don't get too hot inside.

In the San Jose area, a father left his baby in the car. After realizing how hot it was outside, he went out to the car and got all his DVD movies from the car, still "forgetting" about the baby. He even walked by the crib twice to get his DVDs from the car. The scary thing was his wife held his hand during his entire trail. His own mother swore up and down what a great father this loser was.