If you leave your kid unattended outside your house in summer, the car is the very worst place they could be
If you leave your kid unattended outside your house in winter, the car is the very best place they could be (though there could still be a tragic outcome if it’s really f’n freezing)
That’s why it’s more important to know the dangers of children being left in cars, specifically, when it’s hot
The OP is talking about kids freezing in cars during the winter, not overheating in the winter.
From a really cheerful web page entitled How Does a Person Freeze to Death I steal this quote:
So at 70 F core temperature, or 28 degrees below normal temperature, death may occur. Consider that a core body temperature only ten degrees higher than normal can lead to convulsions and death. People can die from overheating pretty easily, even from a fever caused by a virus.
You’ve got a lot of mechanisms to protect you from cold, mostly shutting off circulation to extremities to protect the core, but not so much for heat. All of the heat dumping mechanisms depend on the outside temperature being cooler than the core temperature. If the outside is hotter than the core temperature none of them are going to work,
I think it’s mostly a combination of a few things (most of which are already mentioned):
So a child in a car likely is in a warm place at first, wearing more or less appropriate clothing, is out of the elements more or less, and assuming they’re in there long enough, they have more physiological adaptations to allow them to survive if the ambient temp is low enough. I couldn’t find anything about what temperatures are dangerous for hypothermia, but most sites I checked pointed out that wind and water are what cause it to happen at surprisingly high temperatures, which would lead me to believe that if you’re dry and out of the weather, your hypothermia temperature is probably a lot lower than if you’re wet and in the wind.
I wonder if people are more careful in the winter in dangerous weather. For example, when the temperature gets far below zero, people know that it’s dangerous so they may be more careful about their babies.
It does happen sometimes. From here
Wow, lots of good answers here.
I had thought about the greenhouse effect keeping the car warm, but would note that daylight hours are shorter in the winter and the sun is at a much more shallow angle than during the summer. Also, around here anyways, on the really cold days it’s not often bright and sunny, it’s usually overcast and gloomy.
As far as kids being bundled up, there are those who recommend that kids not be wearing coats when buckled into a car seat. I have personally been chastised multiple times by my wife and stepdaughter for leaving my grandson’s coat on him when I put him in the car. So, the kid may be bundled up, but then again maybe not.
But in general yeah, I get the idea that heat death in a hot car is going to happen much quicker than a hypothermia death in a cold car.
There may also be a cultural aspect at play. For instance, for whatever reason, I’ve known many Asian parents to be far more paranoid about their children being too cold than being too hot. They’ll admonish their kids to bundle up thoroughly - scarves, jackets, mittens, etc. - the whole nine yards - when it is even only somewhat cold outside - i.e., 40-50 F - but are all “aw, pshaw” at the notion of heat.
So such parents may be likelier to worry about their kids being left in a cold car, but pooh-pooh the danger of a hot car.
In addition, I think it is ingrained in people’s minds that keeping someone warm is “caring.” It is often portrayed as bundling up your loved ones, giving them hot beverages to drink, staying warm in winter, etc. It is less often portrayed as keeping someone cool in heat, giving them something cold to drink, etc. Heart-tugging tales like “the girl who sold matches” are all about the poor main character freezing to death; you rarely see children’s literature or other literature that deals with heatstroke. Heat is just a much more neglected danger, as opposed to cold.
Because so many dogs are left in hot cars in the summer, with no water. You don’t have to have children to kill something by forgetting about it.
I’ve slept in cars in Canadian winters for many decades, but I’m not dead yet. I feel happy! I feel happy!
You have obviously never owned a BMW.
But that’s just the same question. Why no stories about dogs freezing to death? I suspect the answer is the same . . . For the vast majority of North America, for almost all days in winter, a dog or child left in a car is not in danger of death on any timeframe a parent or owner is likely to forget them for. The issue with summer is that death is so fast.
Why do you think deviations would be more likely to happen in the summer ? I’m not saying they aren’t , I just don’t follow.
The recommendations are that children shouldn’t wear coats that affect the car seat harness ( that is, the coat is so bulky that when you take the coat off the harness is too loose). Typically, articles referring to this recommendation also advise the use of blankets, car-seat covers for babies ( which are basically a fitted blanket), specific types of snow-suits/ jackets that are thin but warm, or putting an older child’s jacket on backwards over the harness. I suspect most kids in places where the winter is cold are “bundled up” in one way or another.
how about things like kids need to be more bundled up before they even leave the house. this takes time, so a parent might be more apt to recall them being in the car due to this.
or people move more quickly in warmer weather, life’s pace is just faster in warmer weather. so maybe people become more preoccupied with other things when it’s warmer.
maybe people taking off their own coats in the car, and in the time it takes to get out and put it on, they more easily see their kids.
I think it has less to do with the kids surviving and more to do with it not happening as often.
That’s good information. Mind if I write that down?
Okay class, let’s think of an experiment we could perform to test this hypothesis.
A car parked in the sun can reach dangerous temperatures and can kill a young child within fairly short periods of time, measured in minutes not hours … even in mild weather (as some places see in winter). And many otherwise well-informed parents do not appreciate, or poo-too the danger when the outside temperature is mild.
Even quite low temperatures don’t kill so fast (barring being in cold water which transfers heat very efficiently). Frostbite maybe and that takes quite cold.
The former happens to otherwise reasonable parents. The latter requires that mom passed out with the bottle of rum for many hours.
Yes, the shelter effect of a car in winter means you’re more likely to die of exposure outside than in the car. That’s why it’s drummed in to us: “Never leave the car if you’re stuck in winter!” (U:eek:nless it’s actually stranded on the highway itself, of course)
We had an episode in our city a few years ago where a kid on a school bus fell asleep in the back seat and the driver didn’t notice. Parked the bus in the lot and locked it. They found her the next day, safe and sound, just chilly. Scary for her and her parents to have her missing (!!!), but the bus and her normal winter clothes kept her warm through the night.
Why? Given that you can kill your kid in less than an hour in hot weather, vs a day or more in cold weather, why do you think that isn’t as big a factor as forgetting your kid in the first place? It’s a lot easier to forget you kid for the duration of a Target run than over freaking night.
huh?
I said maybe we don’t hear about it as often because it doesn’t happen as frequently.
I gave examples of things to could contribute to it not happening as frequently.
your response to what I said makes no sense.
I don’t understand how you could reach the conclusion that the reason we don’t hear about people killing kids by leaving them in cars in winter is that they don’t leave them in cars as much in winter. The fact that leaving them in hot cars is fatal, while leaving them in cold cars is not, is critical. We don’t hear about it because kids don’t die this way. I don’t understand how you can dismiss that actual fact and decide there’s more support for the theory that the kids don’t get left in the car in winter.
To me, this seems like having all these weird speculative reasons for why we only hear about kids drowning in swimming pools, never in sprinklers. The reason is obvious. Sprinklers aren’t fatal, so children left around them unsupervised don’t die and make the news.