# 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:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/141 "2016-08-22T13:58:23Z")
An interesting academic article here: [https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/46060861/crime-and-parenthood-the-uneasy-case-for-kidsandcarsorg/5](https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/46060861/crime-and-parenthood-the-uneasy-case-for-kidsandcarsorg/5) It’s pretty long, but a few points I’ve managed to pick out include: 1. Parents who leave their kids in cars are prosecuted roughly half the time, and are usually convicted. Sometimes they are sentenced to community service, etc. In cases where the action was intentional, or there were aggravating factors such as alcohol use, all of these events resulted in prosecutions. 2. Fathers seem to be given more leeway in not being prosecuted than mothers, other relatives, or non-family members. 3. White collar types are significantly less likely to be prosecuted than blue collar types. 4. After being convicted, appeals courts rarely overturn the convictions. I think this article highlights that the decision to prosecute is very subjective, and that subjectivity may be leading to unfair outcomes. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/142 "2016-08-22T14:28:06Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Agreement. I’ve driven around with my computer in the back seat of my car, and you can be darn sure I never forgot it and left it! Really? Maybe you just forgot that you’ve forgotten previously. By your own admission your memory is terrible: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18407038&postcount=10](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18407038&postcount=10) > [@Anyone want to talk about Fables?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-want-to-talk-about-fables/721251/10): > > You are very likely correct; my memory is terrible these days. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17397904&postcount=29](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17397904&postcount=29) > [@Do you ever just go stupid?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-ever-just-go-stupid/688998/29): > > I’m sitting here participating in SDMB discussions…and blew right through a dentist’s appointment. Just pure forgot. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19482703&postcount=10](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19482703&postcount=10) > [@Abilities you seem tto have suddenly lost.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abilities-you-seem-tto-have-suddenly-lost/760064/10): > > My speaking vocabulary is suffering terribly as I get older. I’ll know there’s a word I want, but it just won’t come to me. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19383360&postcount=4](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19383360&postcount=4) > [@Help for chronically misplacing things?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-for-chronically-misplacing-things/756639/4): > > I used to grab my chattels and go out the door…until the day I left my keys behind. Now, I consciously observe myself putting my keys in my pocket. It’s become a kind of mental ritual. I must clearly visualize the action before I allow myself to be satisfied and head out the door. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19289509&postcount=120](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19289509&postcount=120) Dunning-Kruger anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/143 "2016-08-22T14:29:27Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > My experience with occasional baby-sitting (both actual babies and dying adults) gives me an understanding of the level of attention needed to keep the baby-sat out of trouble. Having had to wake up at two hour intervals to tend to the needs of another human being even when I’m exhausted myself does give me some insight (chasing a hallucinating mother around the house at 2 am in order to keep her from turning on the stove and setting the house on fire, or tripping over her oxygen hose, or wandering outside into the snow in her nightie, IS a lot like chasing a two-year old around the house except she’s a lot bigger, taller, and can operate things like switches and doorknobs even better than a two-year old. And you can’t physically pick her up and carry her to her room in the same way you can a toddler in order to keep her out of trouble. Had two months of that at one point). My experience with various other things requiring vigilance and responsibility also have taught me a great deal. It is those very experiences that allow me to extrapolate when thinking about issues like this and make me more sympathetic and understanding of parents, even if I don’t, as I’ve said, fully understand actually being a parent. You’ve left a very important detail out about taking care of an infant on a day to day basis vs. a parent, which is self evident to parents who do this on a daily basis which seems pretty relevant here. An infant, weighing under 20 pounds, falling asleep in a rear facing car seat is invisible to the driver and therefore much easier to forget about than a parent weighing 200 pounds and sitting right next to you. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Lowry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Sam\_Lowry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Lowry)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/144 "2016-08-22T14:57:56Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > You can do the same act a thousand times and never have a problem and then the thousand and oneth time something just doesn’t click. Most of the time the thing you mess up on is not life threatening but every so often it maybe. The completely random nature of who this happens to should be a sign that sometimes shit just happens. One of the parents in the [Fatal Distraction article](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html) is a perfect example of this. Everyone should read the entire article, but here’s how it happened to her: > [@](#): > > On the day Balfour forgot Bryce in the car, she had been up much of the night, first babysitting for a friend who had to take her dog to an emergency vet clinic, then caring for Bryce, who was cranky with a cold. Because the baby was also tired, he uncharacteristically dozed in the car, so he made no noise. Because Balfour was planning to bring Bryce’s usual car seat to the fire station to be professionally installed, Bryce was positioned in a different car seat that day, not behind the passenger but behind the driver, and was thus not visible in the rear-view mirror. Because the family’s second car was on loan to a relative, Balfour drove her husband to work that day, meaning the diaper bag was in the back, not on the passenger seat, as usual, where she could see it. Because of a phone conversation with a young relative in trouble, and another with her boss about a crisis at work, Balfour spent most of the trip on her cell, stressed, solving other people’s problems. Because the babysitter had a new phone, it didn’t yet contain Balfour’s office phone number, only her cell number, meaning that when the sitter phoned to wonder why Balfour hadn’t dropped Bryce off that morning, it rang unheard in Balfour’s pocketbook. If \*any \*single thing had been different, then baby Bryce would still be alive. If Bryce hadn’t been sleeping, Balfour would have heard him. If the baby had been in the normal car seat, he would have been behind the passenger seat. If the babysitter didn’t have a new phone number, she would have been able to call Balfour sooner. There are likely hundreds of parents having identical mornings to Balfour, where the routine is off, but one thing doesn’t line up, and so the baby is noticed and not forgotten in the backseat. Balfour just had the very unfortunate luck of everything lining up in the worst way so that the baby was forgotten. > [@Maastricht](#): > > What would make sense, is making it compulsory for cars to have a sensor that tracks movement or sound inside the car once the key is out of the lock, given a certain outside temperature range. That would make it impossible to leave a kid or a pet inside a car without alerting bystanders. I see no downsides to that. I think this thread is a perfect example of why that wouldn’t work, because a lot of people think it could never happen to them, so there’s not a demand for it. > [@Pantastic](#): > > I wonder how many of the people saying that you shouldn’t be prosecuted for killing your kid this way are also in favor of holding the owner of a gun or pool responsible if a kid goes into the pool or gets access to the gun and injures/kills themselves or someone else? It just seems bizzare that locking a kid into a hot car and leaving them there should be A-OK legally, but if a kid breaks into someone’s yard and drowns in the pool that person is terrible and should face prosecution and/or have to pay money to the parents. Well my thinking is that for the vast majority of the time if you forget your baby somewhere, the baby is going to be okay. There’s an example in [Fatal Distraction](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/fatal-distraction-forgetting-a-child-in-thebackseat-of-a-car-is-a-horrifying-mistake-is-it-a-crime/2014/06/16/8ae0fe3a-f580-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html), where a baby is forgotten, but it’s both parents forgetting to pick the baby up at the end of the day, not forgetting the baby in the car at the beginning of the day. I’m sure plenty of other parents have done the same. If you forget your baby at daycare or at home or even at the store, chances are high that someone will notice and take care of the baby until you are called and there won’t be tragic results. However, if you leave your gun lying around, most of the time things will still probably be okay, but chances are higher that something bad could happen. If someone notices a baby sitting around somewhere, their instinct is to take care or get help for the baby. But if someone notices a gun lying around, for some people, kids especially, the instinct might be to play with it. Accidental gun deaths from a gun lying around should be investigated just like a baby left in a car should be. If it is one of the unfortunate “Swiss cheese model” incidents, where everything just lines up wrong, like it’s the one time you leave your gun out, and your brother’s apartment is having AC issues and he has a key to your place so he came over to crash with his son while the AC is being worked on, and whatever else lined up badly so that your nephew was able to accidentally shoot himself, then I would definitely be lenient on punishment. > [@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. I’m an engineer, and I can imagine that maybe being done, but definitely not cheaply. There are much more cost effective ways of saving lives related to car safety. > [@billfish678](#): > > Ironically, I’d wager that the folks that just “know” that they would never forget are the ones more likely to actually do so. The people that admit they might and are terrified they might are probably the ones less likely to do so. I agree. Some of the parents who it has happened to have said that before it happened they couldn’t understand how parents could do it, and couldn’t imagine it ever happening to them, until it did. Of course, this is still very rare, and so the vast majority of parents who think “that could never happen to me” will be right in that it won’t happen to them. > [@brickbacon](#): > > Since when is a standard of not strapping your kid into a car seat, driving somewhere, then forgetting them there, leaving them to bake to death in the hot sun such a high unreachable expectation that it should be deemed “perfection”? I think it’s perfectly fine to expect parents to not make egregious, fatal mistakes with their kids. Will some “good people” still make such mistakes? Sure, but given that 99.99% of parents can manage to not make such mistakes, achieving this level you deem perfection, maybe we should stop pretending we need expensive devices on every car to prevent a handful of people from being negligent. > > When you have a duty to provide a basic standard of care, a fatal accident can rise to a criminal matter. Doesn’t matter if other people did it, or if “it could happen to anyone”. Well 99.99% of parents won’t leave their kid in a hot car to die, but will forget their kids somewhere else, or leave something dangerous within kids reach, or take their eyes off their kids while near a pool, or near a road, or while cooking, or something else. The vast majority of times, nothing bad will happen, and the kid will be taken care of, or the dangerous thing will be noticed before the kid can grab it, or the kid will keep playing and not run out into a road. \*Every \*parent makes mistakes, most are fortunate in that the consequences or injuries are minimal and non-deadly. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/145 "2016-08-22T15:21:53Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > You’ve left a very important detail out about taking care of an infant on a day to day basis vs. a parent, which is self evident to parents who do this on a daily basis which seems pretty relevant here. An infant, weighing under 20 pounds, falling asleep in a rear facing car seat is invisible to the driver and therefore much easier to forget about than a parent weighing 200 pounds and sitting right next to you. This is very true. And yet, I have an understanding of how one can lose track of said 200 pound adult making me even more understanding of how one can lose track of a 20 pound child. I’m one of the parties urging compassion towards the adults involved in these cases, unless malice can be proven. I’m not one of the condemning parties. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/146 "2016-08-22T15:55:26Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > This is very true. And yet, I have an understanding of how one can lose track of said 200 pound adult making me even more understanding of how one can lose track of a 20 pound child. > > I’m one of the parties urging compassion towards the adults involved in these cases, unless malice can be proven. I’m not one of the condemning parties. Yeah, I think we’re actually on the same page, so I’m not sure why I was arguing with you! Backs away gently… ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2016, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/147 "2016-08-22T23:49:18Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Yes, those are the alternatives. Either society accepts the casualties of ongoing, avoidable negligence; or, we treat it as unacceptable–a serious crime. Have you ever made a mistake? Have you ever made a mistake that could have had serious consequences but, through pure dumb luck, didn’t? I suspect everyone has. I know I have. Just a couple examples: There the time I _knew_ the parking brake was on, but it wasn’t. Or the time I knew I threw the breaker but hadn’t (thinking back, I can still see myself throwing it… even though I know I didn’t). Luckily, in those situations no one got hurt through pure luck. I have twins, 10 months old. My wife and I are existing on little to no sleep, though she gets less than I do. The first 6 months were crazy and we were both zombies half the time. There are, at times, an almost overwhelming amount of tasks to get done. Get off from work, rush home, get the boys in the car seats, get the diaper bag, get the stroller, get the car seats in the car, oh shit, forgot the checkbook, crap work is calling, shit the traffic is backed up and were going to be late, dang, baby needs a bottle, shit did you lock the door. Etc. All with 3 hours sleep or less if the boys had a bad night. I can understand how people make this mistake. The idea of this happening to my boys terrifies me. Luckily, pretty much every time we go out my wife is along so it makes making this kind of mistake that much harder. However, I can fully understand how it happens. Slee ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/148 "2016-08-23T00:12:50Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > Again, if it’s so easy for such a thing to happen, why don’t we see these fatal accidents more often? We see fatal accidents all the time. Not all of them are children who die of heat exhaustion. Most fatal accidents are a series of events that when added up cause a fatality. This is universal whether it’s a child in a car, or a plane crash. Why do you think forgetting a sleeping child in the back seat of a car is any different? ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/149 "2016-08-23T00:31:38Z")
> [@sleestak](#): > > I can understand how people make this mistake. The idea of this happening to my boys terrifies me. Luckily, pretty much every time we go out my wife is along so it makes making this kind of mistake that much harder. However, I can fully understand how it happens. > > Slee Gosh, I definitely don’t want to envision your specific twins in this situation, but your points made me realize I don’t think I’ve ever heard about this accidentally happening with twins (or two small children) – I wonder if it is less likely because twins take up more space (there’s more car seat to catch out of the corner of your eye) or maybe two kids are less likely to be sleeping/silent for a long enough stretch of time that they don’t alert the driver. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/150 "2016-08-23T00:46:37Z")
Unfortunately, this happened to twins a couple of weeks ago, and the father was arrested. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/151 "2016-08-23T01:11:35Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > This can happen to anybody reading this thread. We’re all human. What’s to be gained by society piling on with criminal charges? Is there anything gained by kicking a good man when he’s down? > > Certainly if alcohol or drugs plays a role then yes, the person needs to be charged. Maybe if time was a factor. Someone rushing to work at the last minute. That wasn’t the case here. You’re already hinting at the clear and obvious answer: **it totally depends on the specific circumstances**. As in any potential criminal prosecution, the means of death is irrelevant – what is relevant is the role of factors like intent or criminal negligence. There is certainly an _ **implication** _ that the person leaving the child(ren) in a hot car was negligent or worse, but whatever the person may or may not be guilty of needs to be established in court and then punished (or not) accordingly. There’s no general answer of the kind you ask for. If there was, you’d have a pathway to gross miscarriages of justice. ---
**Author:** ![DorkVader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/73ab20/32.png) [@DorkVader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DorkVader)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/152 "2016-08-23T01:13:17Z")
Broomstick, I apologize, when I read what you posted, I didn’t register the part where you said similar, not same. My point wasn’t that people don’t have any idea unless they are parents themselves, it was that the notion that these types of incidents should be automatically prosecuted as criminal acts and the parents convicted as being a notion that is inhumane, lacking in sympathy and/or empathy, legalistic and ultimately detrimental to our society and culture as a whole (as compared to how it is now) and that unless you _are_ a parent, no matter how much care-taking experience you have, you don’t _know_. Baby sitting, even for weeks at a time, gives a little insight, but not the whole or true picture, end of life care for a dying (grand)parent (specially one suffering alzheimers, I know from personal experience) can give you more insight, but again, the end results and known expectations are so opposite that I find it difficult to make many direct comparisons. The emotions and elations and terrors and expections society has of you as a parent and you have of your children and so on and so on… Like I said, its sort of like the difference between being married and merely living together. The difference is small seeming, maybe just a piece of paper, but the implications and realities are huge. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/153 "2016-08-23T17:23:05Z")
Appropriately, my youngest (18 months) child’s daycare center is closed this week, and I am taking him to a different one near my work for the week. My wife usually does his drop off. Yesterday afternoon, I left work and headed home. Completely forgetting him at daycare because I went into autopilot mode. Obviously much better than leaving him in the car; I mean, he ended up getting extra snacks and story time. But still, so very easy to mess up when you are used to doing the same thing day in and day out. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/154 "2016-08-23T18:28:16Z")
I’m not sure how the people arguing that those who accidentally leave their kids in the car must be evil people who don’t care about their kids arrived at their conclusion, but the belief that honest mistakes don’t happen is just too stupid for words. It’s worth mentioning that Yo-Yo Ma once left his prized $2.5MM cello in a cab: > **[In Concert, Searchers Retrieve Yo-Yo Ma's Lost Stradivarius (Published 1999)](https://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/17/nyregion/in-concert-searchers-retrieve-yo-yo-ma-s-lost-stradivarius.html)** > > Array of New Yorkers, including phalanx of police officers and city officials and cabdriver Dishashi Lukumwena in Queens search for $2.5 million Venetian cello, known as Montagnana made in 1733 by Antonio Stradivari that cellist Yo-Yo Ma left in... ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/155 "2016-08-23T20:21:27Z")
I don’t know how we should deal with these cases. I am absolutely convinced though, that anyone who is not a robot, and thinks they are absolutely incapable of an act of tragic forgetfulness is deluding themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2016, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/156 "2016-08-23T21:01:59Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > I’m not sure how the people arguing that those who accidentally leave their kids in the car must be evil people who don’t care about their kids arrived at their conclusion . . . Who here has said that? You’re arrived at a fallacious conclusion of your own. > [@](#): > > . . . but the belief that honest mistakes don’t happen is just too stupid for words. . . . Ditto. No one has said this. Some of us are saying that even honest mistakes can be criminally negligent. You can’t leave a child to die, and get free of the criminal liability with the excuse, “Oh, I forgot,” even if that is a true excuse. Having care and custody of children means not forgetting, and the law exists to punish those who do. ---
**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 24, 2016, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/157 "2016-08-24T03:34:35Z")
What was the news coverage like of such hot-car deaths, say, 60 years ago? Coverage of such deaths seems to have grown greatly in the past decade, but surely such things happened decades ago as well - the Sun wasn’t any cooler back then than it is now. ---
**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 24, 2016, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/158 "2016-08-24T03:37:32Z")
> [@Surreal](#): > > I’m not sure how the people arguing that those who accidentally leave their kids in the car must be evil people who don’t care about their kids arrived at their conclusion, but the belief that honest mistakes don’t happen is just too stupid for words. > > It’s worth mentioning that Yo-Yo Ma once left his prized $2.5MM cello in a cab: > > [http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/17/nyregion/in-concert-searchers-retrieve-yo-yo-ma-s-lost-stradivarius.html](http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/17/nyregion/in-concert-searchers-retrieve-yo-yo-ma-s-lost-stradivarius.html) This thread reminds me of how my mother once punished me for “not hearing” her say something. If someone doesn’t hear something, they didn’t hear it. Punishment doesn’t improve the auditory system in any physical way. In the same way, you can’t punish people into having better memory - if they are already reasonably non-negligent folks. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/159 "2016-08-24T03:43:41Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > What was the news coverage like of such hot-car deaths, say, 60 years ago? Coverage of such deaths seems to have grown greatly in the past decade, but surely such things happened decades ago as well - the Sun wasn’t any cooler back then than it is now. Kids used to be able to sit in the front seat back then. Front airbags made it very dangerous to place infants in the front seat. Now kids are automatically strapped into comfy, padded, rear child seats that lull them to sleep in minutes. ETA: And besides, people weren’t as harried back then and didn’t have multiple distractions like daycare, cellphones, work deadlines. It’s a different world. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2016, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348/160 "2016-08-24T04:36:03Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > Gosh, I definitely don’t want to envision your specific twins in this situation, but your points made me realize I don’t think I’ve ever heard about this accidentally happening with twins (or two small children) – I wonder if it is less likely because twins take up more space (there’s more car seat to catch out of the corner of your eye) or maybe two kids are less likely to be sleeping/silent for a long enough stretch of time that they don’t alert the driver. My boys crash as soon as we start driving. I have mirrors so I can see the boys in the backwards facing car seat. However, it is the lack of sleep +multitasking which scares me. This week I have a major project at work which means 10 to 12 hour days. Last night I was woken up three times, so not much sleep. I am pretty wrecked and by Friday I will be really wrecked. Luckily my wife is a stay at home Mom so a lot of the running around to daycare and the like aren’t part of my day. However if she worked I’d be terrified of leaving the boys in the car due to too many things going on and shear exhaustion. Slee [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-hot-car-deaths-be-criminally-prosecuted/763348.md?page=9)