Stop Leaving Kids In Hot Cars Six children have already died this year from being left in a hot car. Why is this so difficult for some people? [Consumer Reports Health]
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This will tell you why:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/03/04/DI2009030402198.html
Gods, I really hate to say this, but sadly, it could be the case. So here I go. I wonder if any of these were intentional.
Because they wished they wore a condom, and let mother nature take them out instead.
I was at the grocery store last weekend and someone left their 2 dogs in the car and it was about 90 degrees. Called the cops and let them know. Didn't stick around to find out what happened but I hope they let them have it.
Ok, I'll be the guy that makes the un-PC comment:
Do you believe in Evolution?
So... every time I have to drop off AlmostHarmless to singing school (he is a terrible singer, btw, says he prefers to dance. freak.), I cannot take the Thunderbird? That sucks. I'll have to take the pedestrian Lexus...
@AliyaBabasaur: Same thing I cam here to post. That article broke my heart 5 times over when I read it. Here's a link to the original article: [www.washingtonpost.com]
Washington Post had an excellent, and sad, article about this back in February:
It's a complicated issue.
Why is this so difficult for some people?
Because of "It Can't Happen to Me" syndrome.
My mother would do this all the time. She was running into the store for just a minute, and didn't want to take her four kids in with her.
And she'd meet someone she knew. And talkandtalkandtalkandtalkandtalk. While all of us were dying.
It was not the most pleasant experience of my life, and I would never do that any other kid.
What the holy fuck, did I just read that this goddamn moron left his kid in the car for 9 hours? 9 FUCKING HOURS???? I'm sorry, but you'd have to be a goddamn jack ass mother fucker to do something as stupid as that. 9 HOURS AND THE KID IS 9 MONTHS OLD??? Umm, don't 9 month olds need to be changed like every HOUR at least? They can't be left alone for 9 fucking hours in a goddamn house and he thinks it's ok to leave the kid for 9 fucking hours?! Goddamn, that is outrageous. He should be in jail forever for his fucking stupidity and have all of his kids taken away from him. I dunno, maybe it's because I grew up in Arizona and we beat the shit out of people that do this, or maybe it's because I'm not a fucking moron, but wtf...
The penalty for doing this to kids or dogs should be being locked in a hot car for the same amount of time.
My question is this: Why isn't there some sort of alarm for this? I don't think that the majority of the parents are leaving their kids in the car on purpose (at least I'd like to think that). If your car exiting routine gets interrupted, or you are preoccupied and your kid is asleep and you forget about him/her...like the guy in the article posted several times above.
My '03 minivan has a weight sensor that can tell how much weight is in the passenger seat so that it knows whether or now to activate the airbags in case there is a child sitting there. Put the sensors in all the seats so they can detect if there is any weight on the rear seats when the car is off.
There are dings for when the lights are on, or when a door isn't closed all the ways, adding another ding would add that little extra layer of protection.
@trujunglist: I think you may have missed some parts. He thought that he had dropped the kid off already. He didn't intentionally leave the kid in the car for 9 hours.
I also think that him having to live the rest of his life knowing that it was his fault is far worse than any punishment he could receive.
That was me in my mom's Pinto hatchback. And I was typically laying down in the hatchback area, so we're talking roasty toasty. I guess the thing that saved me was that she worked full time, so this happened mostly on weekends.
The smell of sun-baked mildew sticks with me to this day.
@darkjedi26: I've called the cops on things like that before. Once on a bunny.. poor thing couldn't even bark for attention.
Some of you might want to read the full article before you start posting profane and immature rants regarding the story. As the article points out, it's easy to simply forget your child, and it's been done by a wide range of people.
@trujunglist: Not that it makes it excusable, but the guy didn't realize the 9-month-old was in the car at all. It wasn't that he thought the kid would be ok in the car for 9 hours, he just forgot the kid was in the car at all.
People forget things. They leave their wallet at home. They set down their cell phone and forget it. They forget to show up to a date on time. These are all minor mistakes in life.
How you could be so distracted or spaced-out to forget about a CHILD is beyond me. This is a human being -- not replaceable.
Most of you may not be old enough to remember, but back before it was made illegal to put carseats in the front passenger seat, you never heard of a child being left in the car. Now, they are required to be in the back where you can't see them. They fall asleep in the car, people get busy with their phones and radios and whatnot, and forget to drop them off at daycare or forget to bring them in the house when they get home because they can't see them. It's that simple.
I know man, it seems absolutely impossible. I have a 12 month old and fortunately this has never happened to me. I'm just saying the article makes a great case about how easy it is and how anyone can make that fatal mistake.
These stories are so sad. I feel awful for those families because I can just as easily see myself making the same mistake. These families are brave for taking the time to tell their stories and open themselves up for criticism just to spread the word and hopefully prevent another accident.
@MissGayle: I don't know any stats, but I bet it is more likely for a kid to get hurt in a car accident than to be left in the car.
Take the time to read the article that many above have linked to. Towards the end, there's a quote from a clinical psychologist that sums up our reaction to this tragedy extremely well:
"Humans, Hickling said, have a fundamental need to create and maintain a narrative for their lives in which the universe is not implacable and heartless, that terrible things do not happen at random, and that catastrophe can be avoided if you are vigilant and responsible.
In hyperthermia cases, he believes, the parents are demonized for much the same reasons. 'We are vulnerable, but we don't want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we'll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don't want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters.'"
We had a women around here that was charged when her kid died from being in the truck of her car all day while she was at work because she couldn't find a babysitter.
@winshape: Think about how many cars are on the road, and what it would take to retrofit all of them.
Also, how do you calibrate it? Most scales calibrate upon being turned on. So if you put the child in the backseat, it doesn't know that anything has been added.
@Nicholas Semrau: On a far, far less serious scale, that mode of thinking is the same one people here who blame the OP have. If we can put the OP in another category and separate ourselves from them ("I'd never make that mistake") then we can go back to thinking our world is safe.
@winshape:
Engineers could certainly design an alarm for this, but think about it: every car I have every owned had a buzzer that sounds if you open the door with the key in the ignition - they are common to most cars.
Yet people lock themselves out of the car all the time, leaving the key in the ignition.
Anything we could possibly create to remind people would quickly be ignored like the buzzer for the ignition and you'd be back to no solution at all.
Actually, there are devices to tell you that you've left your kid in the car. Apparently, nobody wants to use them. The Washington Post did a great article on the subject called "Fatal Distraction."
@winshape: @winshape: "There are a few aftermarket products that alert a parent if a child remains in a car that has been turned off. These products are not huge sellers. They have likely run up against the same marketing problem that confronted three NASA engineers a few years ago.
In 2000, Chris Edwards, Terry Mack and Edward Modlin began to work on just such a product after one of their colleagues, Kevin Shelton, accidentally left his 9-month-old son to die in the parking lot of NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The inventors patented a device with weight sensors and a keychain alarm. Based on aerospace technology, it was easy to use; it was relatively cheap, and it worked.
Janette Fennell had high hopes for this product: The dramatic narrative behind it, she felt, and the fact that it came from NASA, created a likelihood of widespread publicity and public acceptance.
That was five years ago. The device still isn't on the shelves. The inventors could not find a commercial partner willing to manufacture it. One big problem was liability. If you made it, you could face enormous lawsuits if it malfunctioned and a child died. But another big problem was psychological: Marketing studies suggested it wouldn't sell well.
The problem is this simple: People think this could never happen to them."
@SynMonger: And in reality, too. It's just that usually it's an amusing story about a new parent's gaffe.
@Nick1693: today, i made the mistake of leaving a stick of deodorant in m car while I was at work.
Leaving work at 6pm, it was 92F outside. probably got up past 110F in my car, easily.
let's just say that my car now smells like deodorant.
@NewsBunny: My mom used to, also... but by the time I was old enough to remember it, I was old enough to roll down the window. Because back then, only the rich kids' parents cars had anything besides manual handles.
@Trenton Ray: In the throes of extreme sleep deprivation (58 hours awake, at the time), I've forgotten how to flush the toilet in my own apartment. Also due to extreme sleep deprivation (two weeks straight with fewer than 5 hours per night at most, when my body's an 8.5h body), I've stood stupidly at the top of the hill, unable to remember what I was doing (walking to work) and which way to do it (left).
I'd like to think a kid would be harder to forget but when you're worn out beyond endurance, which many parents of small children are, and frazzled... I can see how it would happen.
It's not as hard as you think. My husband always took our son to daycare. One day, he was out of town and I had to take him instead. Once I got on the highway, my brain went on autopilot and I actually drove my sleeping son to my workplace. I totally forgot about him until I went into the back seat to get my lunchbox. Thank God I packed my lunch that day. It was October, but it was still kind of warm. I will never condemn anyone who has this happen to them because I came so close myself.
I highly recommend reading the Washington Post article if you haven't already.
I hated reading it. I hated reading what happened to these children. I hated reading about how their parents felt. I still hate even thinking about it.
But it is important to read it, and to be aware of what *can* happen.
@winshape: @winshape: @winshape: @winshape: There has been an alarm developed by a NASA engineer. Here's a link to an article http://www.thingamababy.com/baby/2007/07/babysafety.html from 2007 that talks about it. There's another system that was developed by some other company too. I think it's mentioned in the article. These are easy fixes that can be put on an existing car seat without altering the safety of the seat. What's sad is that these could've been on the market already.
@trujunglist: You really ought to read the article that AliyaBabasaur linked above. There are indeed two sides to every story. Some cases are neglect, some are tragic but apparently void of neglect. The Washington Post article that everyone here is talking about (at least the one by Gene Weingarten) is about cases where there was clearly no intent or neglect. Not every parent in his article is a goddamn jack ass mother fucker.
@Trenton Ray: Yet, you can articulate that opinion without resorting to childish profanities. And others here can't.
@winshape: The WP article talks about that very issue. Roughly speaking, companies don't want to produce it because they're afraid of getting sued if it doesn't work, and people don't want to buy it because they refuse to think it could happen to them.
@Trenton Ray: Often, it's not so much forgetting a child as wrongly remembering the child is where s/he's supposed to be. So it's not like you spend the day forgetting you have a kid, you're just sure the kid is at daycare/with your spouse/whatever.
I can't believe it's not common sense!
Nobody should leave their kid in a hot car. They could be scarred for life knowing what it's like being a Christmas ham.
In all seriousness, please don't leave your kids in a hot car.