I’d also submit that the alarm system I’ve outlined could just as easily activate the cabin ventilation fan to expell accumulated interior heat. A drained battery is a small price to pay if your child’s life has been saved. For many good reasons, you do not want the child safety locks suddenly overridden.
The big deal is that while I’m not going to forget and leave my child in the car (and anyway my youngest is 7 and quite capable of getting out of the car himself), I might well forget to disable the thing. I can practically guarantee I’ll forget. And I’m a person who likes things hot, and dislikes things blowing on me, so I don’t use my air conditioning unless someone else is in the car–so that sensor is gonna blow. Sure, after a couple of times being chased down the street by cops in response to an automated 911 call I’d probably remember, but . . .
I just don’t see this as effective.
I’m have never mentioned any sort of “automated 911 call” in any of my descriptions. Nothing would activate until your car was standing still with the engine off and compartment motion (or sound) was detected at temperatures exceeding 90°F. Thank you for playing, please try again.
No offense to an otherwise-great solution, but that would prove to be awfully annoying to the new car owner who doesn’t have children. I have to get the thing disabled by a mechanic? What if I don’t have kids now, but do after getting the car? I have to go back to get it reenabled? I shouldn’t have to prove the validity of my claim of childlessness.
Besides, this isn’t quite like an airbag, which will in all likelihood never need to be deployed. (Do people disable their airbags?)
A more lucid argument might be forthcoming once I finish this coffee.
From the LA Times:
Something about this just don’t add up.
Doesn’t the ‘5 hours in the car’ part seem unreal? Haven’t we seen stories where children have died after being left in the car for far, far less time? And yet, the 3 yr old died a half hour after being removed from the car. (for those of you who are unfamiliar with Lancaster, it’s in the desert and it’s freakin HOT there) No way that kid could last 5 hours in that heat.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. But I’m suspicious that this wasn’t accidental. There’s something else going on here.
I’m so sorry I read this thread.
I recently became a father for the first time. My wife was told she’d probably never have children. Our little girl is 7 months and simply beautiful beyond description.
On one or two occasions, I’ve filled up gas and left my car (under shade) in the gas station while I went inside to pay the bill. It simply broke my heart being away from my daughter unattended in a car for even 90 seconds. She was rugged up nice and happy in her lambs wool safety seat, and the car was cool from the air conditioning and it’s a very mild time of the year down here… still…
To imagine leaving my lovely little girl in a car in the sun in the desert for 5 hours is a thought so painful that… like I said, I’m just so sorry I opened this thread…
Looking forward to hear what you actually meant by this comment.
Another problem with this system: if disabling it is as simple and automatic as pushing a button when you start your car, it will become just that routine and automatic. And the parents who have developed the habit of pushing that button automatically in their pre-parental years are likely to go on pushing it after they have the kid, completely invalidating the protective nature.
Especially when it happens to be the parent who doesn’t normally have the kids in the car. There have been a couple of incidents around here where the mother usually took the child to day care, and then the father was supposed to fill in and forgot about dropping the child off, going on with his normal routine. This guy would be in the habit of pushing the off button routinely, and so the system would likely fail for him, too.
How about this instead: build the detector/alarm system into child seats, instead? If the seat detects that the temperature has risen above X degrees (maybe settable by parent, considering use or nonuse of A.C. and local climate) AND the seat detects the weight of a child in it, THEN it goes off.
Mandate the use of child seats in cars until child is old enough to be able to open the window/door himself, and you have a solution that could work and only affect the target audience.
I’m all for making cars as safe as possible, but you know what pisses me off? That we HAVE to.
Why should we have to tell “parents” how to take care of their children?
We should not have to tell parents to not leave children in a hot car for 5 hours in the fucking summer.
We should not have to tell parents not to molest their children.
We should not have to tell parents not to hit their children.
We should not have to tell parents to feed their children.
We should not have to tell parents to show some concern, love and affection to their children.
WTF is wrong with these people when there are so many people out there who would love a child and treat them like the precious gift that they are?
I, for one, hope there is a special pit in hell for these so called parents.
I truly admire people who realize that they don’t want a child and take steps to prevent from having one. That takes maturity. Anybody can create or pop out a baby.
In addition, it could also be that the little kids were very obedient, remembering being told to never get out of the car unless mom/dad said so, and thus staying in the car even as they felt hot and sick.
As regards to where and when to install such a device (so as not to annoy non-target users, so as not to allow parents a chance to get used to turning it off before kids arrive etc) engineer it as a separate component. Give it away for free to all new parents as they leave the hospital. This is what is done with car-seats/carriers for infants in Sweden, you leave the hospital with the kid in an approved baby-carrier that you can then strap into the car, its good till they are a few months old.
Italics are mine
It disturbs me that you even leave your child alone, unattended in a running car ( I assume it was running because you said it was cool from the air conditioning… maybe it wasn’t running) for a mere 90 seconds!! With all the horror stories out there about kids being kidnapped when their parents turned their back “just for a second” I don’t see how anyone can leave their child alone in a car!! Too much can happen. When I get gas I do one of three thing:
[list=1]
[li]Get gas when the kids aren’t with me[/li][li]Use the “Pay at the pump” option[/li][li]Take the kids inside with me when I pay[/li][/list=1]
It may be hassle when you have a young child or more than one child but I know that I would never forgive myself if something happened during the time it took me to run inside and pay for gas!! Shortly before the birth of my first baby I read something in Ann Landers that has always stuck with me… especially whenever I’ve been tempted to leave my kids alone in the car. It basically said, “Never leave your child unattended anywhere you wouldn’t leave a million dollars cash unattended!”
I’m sorry if this sounds preachy… I don’t mean it to be. Please don’t leave your precious little girl alone in the car ever ever again!! It’s just not worth the risk.
This is the THIRD time in TWO DAYS that children have died this horrible death!! The ones responsible for leaving these children to die should be put to death the very same way IMO. Stories like this are absolutely heartbreaking and should never happen and it angers and saddens me when it does. My own children are 5 and 3 and I can’t imagine ever “forgetting” that they were left in the car. This kind of thing happens every single year! Something has to be done to stop it!!
It is damn near IMPOSSIBLE to find a mechanic who will disable an airbag. I have friends who have tried – when you’re four feet tall, those things CAN be dangerous. The mechanics are afraid of lawsuits and just won’t do it, even if somebody shows up who has all the legal paperwork and whatever is necessary ready to go.
And I think it’s incredibly unfair to make people pay to disable a system they don’t need, since they don’t have kids. It’d piss me off big time.
How about, people NOT LEAVING THEIR KIDS IN CARS??? HOW HARD IS THAT???
On one or two occasions, I’ve filled up gas and left my car (under shade) in the gas station while I went inside to pay the bill. It simply broke my heart being away from my daughter unattended in a car for even 90 seconds.
I’m with Kiki on this one.
Never, ever ever leave a kid alone in a car, ever! I know it’s a pain to wake the baby, struggle with the carseat, etc. but there are a lot of nutso people out there. It’s not just the weather you’ve gotta worry about, ya know.
While we could implement all the safety measure in the world, they can’t account for the variable that some people are simply not responsible enough to raise a child.
I think World Eater just got it in one. Unfortunately, I don’t see any way to stop these sorts of people from having kids. Biology is awfully powerful.
I agree that it’s just not a good idea to leave a child alone in a car. Unfortunately it is going to happen so I think the alarm idea is a good one.
How about this:
When pressure is felt on a rear seat cushion an alarm is activated. If the ignition isn’t started within, say, 2 minutes, the alarm goes off. Once the ignition is started the alarm stays active, and when the ignition is shut off and pressure is released from the front seats, the alarm is again primed to go off after 2 minutes. When the rear seats are emptied the alarm goes dormant.
That way, people have a little time to deal with the car seats and belts before the alarm triggers. It should be a loud easily distinguished alarm too, so anybody who hears it knows there’s somebody in a car. The lights should flash too.
It’s complicated, I know, but it seems like a reasonable system that could be developed.
I barely understood that description, but I still have a question. What if I go shopping and put something (lets say a computer monitor or something) in the back seat, and go off to continue shopping for several more hours. Then what happens?
I think this is one of the best ideas I’ve heard so far. Most vehicles are equiped to ding and flash a sign on the dash when the driver’s seatbelt isn’t buckled… how hard could it be to have something like that for carseats. Something that would alert people around the vehicle (not necessarily the parents, just passerbys, neighbors, etc.) that someone is in the vehicle.
Most people don’t leave their dogs in a vehicle in the sweltering heat… yet they’ll leave their children. :rolleyes: :mad:
If the carseat is seperate from the car, (I thiink they all are), then it would need to interface the vehicle somehow.