# Should hot car deaths be criminally prosecuted? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348 "2016-08-19T21:55:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/181 "2016-08-26T20:02:39Z")
Because parents don’t want to leave their kids to die in a hot car, whereas murderers very much want to murder. The motive is completely different, and therefore a straight-up comparison is not effective. To be somewhat conciliatory, I think a really massive public awareness campaign, with TV spots and billboards, would probably do as much good as criminal prosecution. I’m just not good with letting people get away with doing criminal wrong, on the grounds that “they’ve suffered enough.” (Like the guy who murders both parents, and asks for mercy because he’s an orphan…) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/182 "2016-08-26T20:31:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Because parents don’t want to leave their kids to die in a hot car, whereas murderers very much want to murder. I’m confused - this sounds, if anything, like a reason \*not \*to jail such parents, and a reason \*to \*implement strong deterrence against murderers. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/183 "2016-08-27T01:42:02Z")
Well, that may be true too…but my reasoning is that people are more likely to be deterred, by watching others get punished, from a behavior that they don’t want to do anyway. It heightens awareness, including the all-important self-awareness and self-observation. There is a law being proposed in Sacramento to require an alarm in school buses, with the off-switch in the very back. This would force school bus drivers to go all the way to the back of the bus to turn the alarm off…which would make them check the bus for stragglers…so a kid would be less likely to be forgotten, left behind, and die. Which happened. So…instead of prosecuting parents…how about a mandatory alarm on child car seats? When you stop the car, the alarm goes off, making it that much more difficult for anyone to forget their kid. (ETA: my car has an alarm if I stop the engine but leave the lights on. Darn thing has saved the charge on my battery dozens and dozens of times.) ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/184 "2016-08-27T02:42:50Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, that may be true too…but my reasoning is that people are more likely to be deterred, by watching others get punished, from a behavior that they don’t want to do anyway. It heightens awareness, including the all-important self-awareness and self-observation. > > There is a law being proposed in Sacramento to require an alarm in school buses, with the off-switch in the very back. This would force school bus drivers to go all the way to the back of the bus to turn the alarm off…which would make them check the bus for stragglers…so a kid would be less likely to be forgotten, left behind, and die. Which happened. > > So…instead of prosecuting parents…how about a mandatory alarm on child car seats? When you stop the car, the alarm goes off, making it that much more difficult for anyone to forget their kid. > > (ETA: my car has an alarm if I stop the engine but leave the lights on. Darn thing has saved the charge on my battery dozens and dozens of times.) car seat wouldn’t see the heat signature of a child in a safety seat. if it’s activated by the weight of the safety seat then people will ignore it because they often leave the seat in the car. the simplest thing is to tie a piece of rope to the seat with a clip on the end and clip it to the driver. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/185 "2016-08-27T02:51:49Z")
But…they’d just forget to clip on the string. How about an alarm in the child-seat itself, so if a baby is sitting in it, the alarm goes off when the car’s engine stops. (Also useful if the driver puts a bag of groceries there.) ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/186 "2016-10-03T19:52:31Z")
Bumping this because there was another death locally. [http://www.azfamily.com/story/33299164/2-in-custody-after-baby-was-found-dead-near-85th-ave-peoria](http://www.azfamily.com/story/33299164/2-in-custody-after-baby-was-found-dead-near-85th-ave-peoria) The caregivers are facing felony child abuse charges. Also, they are not the child’s parents. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/187 "2017-06-24T17:46:32Z")
Here is a case for definitely prosecuting: > [@](#): > > Parker County sheriff’s investigators have arrested a 24-year-old mother in connection with the deaths of her two children, who she said locked themselves in a hot car in Weatherford last month. > > Cynthia Marie Randolph has been charged with two first-degree felony counts of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury after admitting to investigators that she left the children in the car to teach her daughter a lesson. > **[Parker County mom arrested in 2 kids' deaths said she left them in hot car to...](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2017/06/24/parker-county-mom-arrested-in-2-kids-deaths-said-she-left-them-in-hot-car-to-teach-a-lesson/)** > > Parker County Sheriff's investigators have arrested a 25-year-old mother in connection with the deaths of her two children, who she said locked... ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/188 "2017-06-24T17:55:42Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Here is a case for definitely prosecuting: > > [https://www.dallasnews.com/news/parker-county/2017/06/23/parker-county-mom-arrested-said-left-kids-hot-car-teach-daughter-lesson](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/parker-county/2017/06/23/parker-county-mom-arrested-said-left-kids-hot-car-teach-daughter-lesson) I doubt anyone is opposed to charges in that case. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Okrahoma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90db22/32.png) [@Okrahoma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Okrahoma)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/189 "2017-06-24T18:01:56Z")
I haven’t read every post in this thread, and I am not really sure if the parent should go to jail in every such case, but: If I did that, and my kid died, I’d be so dead inside that I wouldn’t really care if they put me in jail for life afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/190 "2017-06-24T18:21:34Z")
> [@Okrahoma](#): > > I haven’t read every post in this thread, and I am not really sure if the parent should go to jail in every such case, but: > > If I did that, and my kid died, I’d be so dead inside that I wouldn’t really care if they put me in jail for life afterwards. I’d probably kill myself. ---
**Author:** ![CelticKnot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/celticknot/32/3392_2.png) [@CelticKnot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelticKnot)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/191 "2017-06-25T21:02:06Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > What I don’t get is why cars don’t come with some sort of simple ventilation system to keep the temperatures from rising and the air circulating when the car is turned off. It doesn’t seem to me (as a non-engineer) to be an insurmountable engineering problem. > [@Acsenray](#): > > If we were, we wouldn’t be trying to castigate a person for a failure like this. We would be talking about how to require car makers to design cars so that this can’t happen, or designing workplaces or other social institutions so that someone is less likely to leave his or her unattended or unobserved in dangerously hot conditions for hours on end. The article states that legislators have tried to pass those requirements but the auto lobbies are fighting it. NASA engineers have invented a child-left-in-the-car sensor with a key fob alarm but can’t get it made and marketed. Why would anyone oppose these common sense precautions? Because lawyers got involved. If these was some malfunction, the alarm didn’t work, and a child died, the parent wouldn’t prosecuted, but the manufacturer of the alarm would be sued. We cannot stop accidents or remove stress from everyday life. We could demand tort reforms so people couldn’t sue anyone that didn’t contribute to their perfect bliss by taking away all their responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/192 "2017-06-25T21:06:40Z")
At the very least, yes, criminal negligence, and depending on provable intent, murder. The law doesn’t make exception for idiocy in other matters, so why should it make an exception for someone who may just be stupid enough to leave their child in a sweltering car? And that’s assuming the person isn’t some sick bastard who intends to kill or cause the kid to suffer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348.md?page=9)