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Hot Cars - Latest News
115 degrees in 10 minutes: The dangers of kids and hot cars
When the engine is cut and the doors are shut, your vehicle can turn into an oven. Every year, children die trapped in the backs of hot cars. In the last 27 years, nearly 800 children died in hot cars. In 2017, 23 have died so far across the country. Now, lawmakers in Washington, D.C. are pushing for change. Congress introduced the Hot Cars Act. It’s a bill aimed at forcing automakers to install rear seat alert systems on all new vehicles. The system would operate similarly to a seat belt reminder and ding if you cut the ignition and remind the driver of a passenger in the back seat.
Don’t Let Your Child Become a Hot Car Victim
Every year, an average of 37 children die from being locked inside a hot car in the U.S. Since 1994, 804 children have died from heat-related illnesses in cars, according to Kids and Cars, an advocacy center that conducts research on car-related dangers surrounding children. It’s heartbreaking—an unspeakable tragedy that could be avoided. When we hear stories of infants and toddlers dying in their car seats, while parents leave them unattended for hours, we think, “How could anyone possibly forget their child?”
Family loses son in hot car death, joins lawmakers in stopping it
“I still wake up every morning and cry. I still gaze at my picture that I carry with me," Miles Harrison said. It was a hot July day. Miles Harrison drove to work, forgetting to drop his 21-month-old son Chase off at daycare. Chase died after being left in a sweltering car for 9 hours. Miles was acquitted of manslaughter. But has never forgiven himself. "Just think it was a bad dream," he added. Now, nine years later, Miles and his wife Carol are on a mission to make sure this doesn’t happen to anymore families.
37 children die of heat stroke after being left in hot cars each year
Peabody recalls the day it happened, “October 18th 2008 was a very un-typical day for us, normally on Saturdays my daughter Maya would have gone to work with me. We had family in town so we all went out to breakfast and took three separate vehicles.” After breakfast, Dawn took the family suburban to work. Maya went with her father, Wes, and the other kids piled in with Grandma and Grandpa. Dawn Peabody says, “My husband on the way home stopped to get gas and then when he got home he did what he normally would have done he jumped out of his vehicle ran inside to play with the kids. About an hour later someone asked where is Maya. And then it hit him.
Texas boy invents device to prevent hot car deaths
Bishop Curry looks for ways to fix the world. For an 11-year-old boy, he's unusually curious about big-picture problems, his dad says — from natural disasters to civil rights. And he's always loved to tinker. That's why it wasn't a surprise when Bishop, after seeing an upsetting local news report about a 6-month-old who died when left in a hot car, resolved to make sure something like that never happened again. "I was like, 'This would be my one-way shot to actually helping people,'" Bishop told NBC News.
