Children still dying in hot cars.

[moonbogg]

We must outlaw all cars.

 

[marincounty]

Technology can easily solve this problem. Occupancy sensor + temp sensor => auto open windows and sound alarm.
But there will probably need to be either a government mandate or IIHS requirement for top safety pick for industry to do so.

I don't know what the delay is. I think a technological solution would fix this very cheaply.
Children are going to continue to die like this until the cars are fixed.
This would be a perfect issue for a politician to grab hold of....Republicans?

 

[pcgeek11]

Its not about being stupid. Its about making mistakes when your comprised by lack of sleep and stress. Your comments on the other hand are stupid.




There was a story of a mom who left her twins in the back seat of her car a few years ago. Both kids died and the mom was destroyed and ended up killing herself if I remember it correctly. She was a smart capable career woman who made a mistake on a day she was most compromised. Sometimes parents dont have help and a support group and accidents happen.


Yes it happens occasionally because some idiot got drunk and fell asleep and the kids stayed in the car or some babysitter was screwing her bf when it happened but most times its a tragedy like dropping a new born.

I could see it in the case of triplets or something ... maybe.

I have raised children from babies. My wife and I were never deprived of sleep to where we forgot the baby. That is crazy and makes no sense to me at all.

 

[nageov3t]

I could see it in the case of triplets or something ... maybe.

I have raised children from babies. My wife and I were never deprived of sleep to where we forgot the baby. That is crazy and makes no sense to me at all.

the scientific reasons were explained above, and the incidents in which this has happened appear to have nothing to do with intelligence, educational level, or occupation.

if you've ever driven from point A to point B on autopilot and have no conscious recollection of the actual drive in between, you too are probably capable of forgetting your kid under the right circumstances.

 

[walkur]

I'll just leave this here to read...

http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/19fmjf/autopilot/

 

[DrPizza]

Something I can't quite figure out: in my vehicles, if there's a package on the front seat of the weight of a car seat + baby, the passenger side air bag turns off.

But, anyone light enough to cause the air bag to be turned off isn't legally allowed to be there in the first place. So, it seems that technology mandates on automobile manufacturers happened faster than the other laws. In other words, my vehicle costs more for the pointless equipment. Why not stop putting the sensor in the front seat, and instead, put the sensor in the back seat which would trigger some other sort of response by the car. E.g., when you turn off your car, the horn starts beeping after 30 seconds, unless the rear door is opened.

 

[Smoblikat]

This is why I dont ever want kids, they are too stupid to protect themselves. I can barely keep track of me, let alone something incapable of self-preservation.

 

[Atreus21]

Well let me help you out. I did this as a safety topic for work this summer.

In most cases many things do go wrong but the number one cause is distraction of the parent.

Have you ever driven to work and couldn't remember the last 20 minutes of the drive? If you have, pretend you had a kid in your car and now you know how easy it is to have forgotten your kid. Your brain makes memory maps of routine procedures like driving to work. This saves energy and allows you to focus our attention elsewhere.

In a lot of cases the parent who normally doesn't take the child to day care ends up taking the kid but gets distracted along the way. The memory map kicks in and they go to work leaving the child.

The child who these days is in the back facing backwards in a car seat and can't be seen from the front.

Quite frankly this is one of my fears with my own kids.

Agree. This issue is not as simple as it seems.

I remember reading about research done into the issue. They constructed a profile of the types of people who do this, or tried to. THey found that it was useless. It happens to literally any type of person. Doting parents, scientists, teachers, social workers, poor people, rich people...

I too fear the same thing. No one is truly immune to it.

There was an absolutely heart-wrenching article on these forums a few years ago about it. It's hard for anyone not go into tears reading it. Don't think it was P&N though.

 

[Thump553]

this is a long, but really great, read about the subject --

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...e0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html

Excellent article loki8481, perhaps the best article I have read about legal matters in a lay publication. It also changed my mind as I was previously firmly in the "how is it possible to forget your kid" class.

BTW the Washington Post article you linked had a link at the end for makeshift suggestions until a more foolproof technological solution is found: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR2009030601690.html

 

[Atreus21]

Excellent article loki8481, perhaps the best article I have read about legal matters in a lay publication. It also changed my mind as I was previously firmly in the "how is it possible to forget your kid" class.

BTW the Washington Post article you linked had a link at the end for makeshift suggestions until a more foolproof technological solution is found: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR2009030601690.html

Ah good, loki linked to it. The article changed my mind too, a few years ago. I still can't read the whole fucking thing.

 

[pcgeek11]

the scientific reasons were explained above, and the incidents in which this has happened appear to have nothing to do with intelligence, educational level, or occupation.

if you've ever driven from point A to point B on autopilot and have no conscious recollection of the actual drive in between, you too are probably capable of forgetting your kid under the right circumstances.

Nope I have never driven and not remembered it. That is also stupid. If you are that tired or drunk a smart person wouldn't drive.

 

[Zaap]

Have you ever driven to work and couldn't remember the last 20 minutes of the drive?

Not really. No.

If you have, pretend you had a kid in your car and now you know how easy it is to have forgotten your kid.

Having my kid in my car in no way equates to me as the same sort of mundane thing as driving to work (and even that doesn't turn me into a forgetful-zombie) therefore I can't really relate to the above 'pretend' scenario.

To me it's sort of like if I've ever forgotten (in the past) a date was in the car or (currently) my wife. Answer would be a most definite "I can not for the life of me conceive of that, NO". When you have a loved one in the car, for the purpose of going somewhere with that person, it's not the same mundane thing as a boring trip to work, therefore not even on the same level of potential forgetfulness.

Now magnify the significance of "a person that's in my car that means a hell of a lot to me, that I'm totally responsible for" by 1000 and that's my own infant child.

FORGET that he's in the car, when I'm the one who put him in it, for the purpose of taking him somewhere???

The concept is total alien to me- inconceivable.

Like I said, I'm willing to entertain the idea that it happens to people, and no I don't think just because they are stupid. I DON'T believe it could happen to just *anyone* out of the blue.

There must be some sort of forgetfulness issue (or maybe more accurately, a level of *EXTREME* self-centered/borderline-to-full-blown narcissist issue that allows one to forget their closest possible loved one so easily) some people must have- but no, I don't believe that everyone has this, and I don't believe I have it, at least not yet. Maybe when I'm 85 or something, but then, I don't imagine I'll be driving any infants around at that age.

 

[OverVolt]

Of course it was the phone that threw off his whole routine.

 

[Jaskalas]

Nope I have never driven and not remembered it. That is also stupid. If you are that tired or drunk a smart person wouldn't drive.

A smart person wouldn't... drive to work / school? These are mandates on you.

 

[Jaskalas]

Of course it was the phone that threw off his whole routine.

Drivers these days... the phone IS the routine.

 

[IronWing]

Killing your kid in a hot car is sooo 90s. Procecutors have caught on to that one. Drowning that unwanted child is the hip, modern method.

 

[mammador]

Don't see what the state can do to prevent stuff like this..

 

[Atreus21]

Don't see what the state can do to prevent stuff like this..

State can't, and shouldn't. Car companies ought to do something.

 

[Drako]

Something I can't quite figure out: in my vehicles, if there's a package on the front seat of the weight of a car seat + baby, the passenger side air bag turns off.

But, anyone light enough to cause the air bag to be turned off isn't legally allowed to be there in the first place. So, it seems that technology mandates on automobile manufacturers happened faster than the other laws. In other words, my vehicle costs more for the pointless equipment. Why not stop putting the sensor in the front seat, and instead, put the sensor in the back seat which would trigger some other sort of response by the car. E.g., when you turn off your car, the horn starts beeping after 30 seconds, unless the rear door is opened.

Some cars don't have rear seats.

 

[Anubis]

Nope I have never driven and not remembered it. That is also stupid. If you are that tired or drunk a smart person wouldn't drive.

it has nothing to do with being tired. my commute is 53 miles, Takes 45-50 min. been doing it every day for like 6 years
I autopilot through it very often

there has been more than one occasion where I made the same drive on a day I didn't work yet ended up at work, and it didn't click that this was wrong until I pulled into the parking lot

 

[HumblePie]

it has nothing to do with being tired. my commute is 53 miles, Takes 45-50 min. been doing it every day for like 6 years
I autopilot through it very often

there has been more than one occasion where I made the same drive on a day I didn't work yet ended up at work, and it didn't click that this was wrong until I pulled into the parking lot

Been driving my wife to various doctors recently since having our child. Most of the doctors are all in the same medical "area" in relation to each other. So I make roughly the same trip when driving her to a doc or my child to a doc. Well, wife went to go see a new doc for some cardio stuff that is in a completely different part of San Antonio. What do I do when I start heading out to drive her to an appointment on Wednesday? Yep I drive to the wrong medical area completely. Soon as I get there I realized my mistake and manage to barely get across town to where we really needed to for her appointment in time.

 

[HumblePie]

I will stipulate the trick is to make new base memory maps through repetition. This is why I do a man-pat anytime I enter or exit a build or vehicle. I mean every single time. It's automatic. I turn off and on certain lights in my house whenever I am entering or exiting. Again it's something completely automatic for me. I made it automatic. My wife hasn't so I am constantly having to turn of lights she leaves on every where in the house when we are ready for bed.

I have already made certain things a habit when I park a car. I walk completely around it when entering and exiting my vehicle checking tires for pressure. I know I don't need to do it every time, but I do. I know it's a bit OCD, but by doing so I hope it helps gives me visibility I might not have had if I had a brain fart and almost leave my kid in the car. I haven't done it yet, and can't imagine doing it either, but I am taking steps to build new memory maps/habits to hopefully prevent it.

 

[nageov3t]

Been driving my wife to various doctors recently since having our child. Most of the doctors are all in the same medical "area" in relation to each other. So I make roughly the same trip when driving her to a doc or my child to a doc. Well, wife went to go see a new doc for some cardio stuff that is in a completely different part of San Antonio. What do I do when I start heading out to drive her to an appointment on Wednesday? Yep I drive to the wrong medical area completely. Soon as I get there I realized my mistake and manage to barely get across town to where we really needed to for her appointment in time.

yup, happens to my BF and I too.

his family and my family both happen to live in the same town, on different streets but both a single turn off the main drag... half the time we drive to one, we end up driving to the other house on autopilot without even realizing until the non driver is like "hey, you just missed the turn.."

 

[Zaap]

Missing a turn/driving to different location than intended/ forgetting+frying your infant in the car because you went to do something completely unrelated to why you had the infant in the car in the first place.

Hmm.. which of these things is not like the others?

 

[nageov3t]

Missing a turn/driving to different location than intended/ forgetting+frying your infant in the car because you went to do something completely unrelated to why you had the infant in the car in the first place.

Hmm.. which of these things is not like the others?

it's the exact same brain process, but it seems like you're unwilling to actually read up on it.