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Cars Are Starting To Remind Us Not To Leave Baby In The Back Seat
Your car already reminds you of a lot of things. Fasten your seat belt, charge your battery, inflate your tires, fill the tank. Now Congress wants car makers to work in another one: a reminder to check the backseat. The goal is to cut down on the number of kids who die every year in hot cars. On average, 37 kids die each year that way; this year, the toll is 35, and it's only August. The Hot Cars Act of 2017 — recently introduced in the House and the Senate — doesn't specify the form that reminder should take.
Lawsuit filed to force DOT to issue rear seatbelt warning rule
KidsAndCars.org and The Center for Auto Safety filed suit in federal court Wednesday to compel the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to implement a law passed by Congress in 2012, and issue a standard requiring a rear seat safety belt warning system. “They were set to meet the deadline by October of 2015,” said Amber Andreasen, Director at KidsAndCars.org. “Two years later, it’s 2017 and they have yet to issue the rule. In fact, there hasn’t even been a proposed rule.” Nearly 1,000 unrestrained rear seat passengers were killed in 2015 alone.
If a child is left in a hot car, the vehicle should alert you, advocates for law say
Jennifer Hilton is a loving mother who would never put a child in danger. Until the day she did. On Oct. 6, 2010, Hilton forgot to drop her son Chris at day care — a job her husband usually did — and instead left the toddler in the car when she went to work in south suburban Crestwood. Luckily, Chris was found before he died of heatstroke. Hilton, who has moved out of state, said she now knows this could happen to anyone. She volunteers to speak on the issue through KidsAndCars.org, a Kansas-based safety advocacy group. "You mix exhaustion with a change of routine and stress and you're waiting for a bomb to explode," said Hilton, 41.
Hot car deaths reach record numbers in July
As of July 31, the number of children across the United States who have died of heatstroke when left in hot cars was at a record high. This year, 29 children have died of heatstroke after being left in a vehicle. That's more than at this point in previous years, according to Jan Null, a certified consulting meteorologist with the Department of Meteorology & Climate Science at San Jose State University. And 11 of those deaths were reported in the past week alone.
No one is immune
National Child Vehicular Heatstroke Prevention Day activities were held nationwide Monday in hopes of preventing child deaths associated with being left in hot cars. Already this year 30 children have died — two in Arizona over the weekend — after being left in hot cars. “No one thinks this can happen to them and that is why technology along with education is critical to preventing these tragedies,” Janette Fennell, founder and president of KidsAndCars.org said.
