Every summer, a number of children die from a completely preventable tragedy — being left in hot cars, with an average of 37 such fatalities each year in the U.S.
The time it takes for a car to heat up to the point of being fatal to a child is about an hour and 40 minutes. In that time, the core temperature of toddlers will rise to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, with their organs shutting down, brains malfunctioning and possible seizures leading to black out before death.
Shade does little to increase chances of survival, adding an hour at most.
“It’s less about air temperature and more about health issues that arise when the internal body temperature rises,” Jennifer Vanos, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of California San Diego in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, told The Washington Times.
Ms. Vanos is the lead author on a new study measuring how quickly cars heat up in the sun and the effects on a toddler.
More than half of these deaths occur because a parent or guardian has forgotten the child sitting in the back seat and goes about their daily routine, shopping or working. In many of these cases the child is left between seven and eight hours.
So far this year, at least seven children left in hot cars have died, most recently a 1-year-old girl in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday. Earlier this month, 4-month-old twins died in their father’s SUV in Chesterfield, Virginia.
“The most important thing is for people to understand unknowingly leaving a child in a vehicle can happen to anyone and the biggest mistake is to think that it can’t happen to you,” said Janette Fennell, president of KidsAndCars.org.
For the past 20 years, the organization has been advocating for vehicle safety and legislation, especially regarding children.
Child vehicular heatstroke is the No. 1 cause of accidental, non-crash car deaths in the U.S., and has risen by more than 800 percent in the last 27 years — from five deaths in 1990 to 43 last year.
Part of the increase stems from a cultural change to improve child car safety: Parents began to stop putting children under the age of 12 in front seats. This solved the problem of rising pediatric deaths from overpowered passenger air bags, but parents started losing awareness that their children were in the back seat.
“What we’ve done is taken care of kids being killed by air bags, but the unintended consequence is we have over 800 who have died in hot cars,” Ms. Fennell said.
Advocates are pushing for technological solutions, with visual and auditory signals that alert drivers to check the back seat. The Helping Overcome Trauma for Children Alone in Rear Seats (HOT CARS) Act of 2017, introduced in June in the House and July in the Senate, would require the Department of Transportation to make these types of technologies mandatory in new cars.
“The reality is there are a variety of different technological means that have come along that can help mitigate or eliminate this problem,” said Jason Levine, executive director for the Center for Auto Safety, a supporter of the legislation.
Some companies already have started to include either rear door or seat sensors in some newer vehicles. Nissan has a rear seat sensor that can detect movement in the back seat when the car is parked. It sets off an alarm and sends a message to the driver’s cellphone.
General Motors has technology that reminds drivers when they park to check the back seat if they had opened the rear door before starting their trip. Hyundai has announced similar plans for such add-ons.
These alerts aren’t foolproof: Children often fall asleep in their car seats and may not move for a while. The rear door alarms also reset after each stop, so if a driver makes a stop before reaching the final destination without opening the rear door, the alarm won’t sound.
Mr. Levine said another solution might be sensors in back seats that light up the dashboard, similar to front-seat passenger sensors that trigger the air bag to engage.
“That sort of technology can be put into the back seat and then linked to an audible signal if you have left a car. We have that when you leave car keys in the ignition, if you leave your lights on, the car will signal, there’s no reason we shouldn’t have this technology installed,” he said. In the meantime, Ms. Fennell is raising awareness with “Look before you Lock,” urging parents to create reminders to check the back seat every time they leave their car. This could be placing a cellphone or handbag in the back with the child, getting in the habit of opening the back door every time you leave the vehicle, or placing a stuffed animal in the front seat when the child is in the back.
“The thing that makes me shudder — I know today in the United States there are many wonderful families that have gorgeous babies. But by the end of the summer, they’re not going to have those children,” she said.
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