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…)
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.
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.
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.