Leaving Kids In Cars To Die

[Tick]

I commented on this last week but I feel a thread is in order based on what I heard on the news this morning.

I'll be 50 this year and I lived through the 70's, 80's,90's, 2000's, and its now 2014. Never do I remember growing up hearing story after story of parents leaving there children in vehicles to fry. Now its such an epidemic they actually have a national campaign called, "Wheres baby?" tag line..."look before you lock" I just can't wrap my brain around so many things happening in society in this day and age, and this is surely something that blows my mind.

Now this morning on the news I hear a crusade from a woman whose husband left their son in the back seat while he went in to work. Their son died. Very sad indeed.
She wants car company's to install devices in vehicles to inform parents if they have left the kids in the car. The car would alert them of this as they try to leave the vehicle.
Really?
Its getting to the point that people just don't want to take accountability for their own actions. Its kind of ridiculous.
So lets have car company's install these devices in cars, so when they don't work we can hold the car company liable for YOU leaving your kid in a car to die.
Then you can sue the car company for millions because YOU are too stupid to not realize your own child was left in the back seat to fry in a car. After all, if the device worked your child would still be alive, right?
Quite pathetic if you ask me, but that's where things seems to be heading. Finding reasons to exonerate yourself from your own actions and hold someone else liable for your mistake.

That's how I feel about it.

[jingle.boy]

'Murica.

Well put Tick.  Some people just can't accept that they should be held accountable for their own action... that everyone else needs to change to compensate for their stupidity.

[JayOctavarium]

I just don't understand... HOW does one FORGET their CHILD in the car?

[El Barto]

I just don't understand... HOW does one FORGET their CHILD in the car?

People forget stuff all the time. Late for work. Important project. Hot nooner planned with coworker. Things pile up. The severity of it doesn't really alter the fact that it's a common mistake to overlook things. People dive off with the those carseat things sitting on top of the car at the gas station. They go to catch a flight with their CCW .357 in their briefcase. I've forgotten to take pills that keep me from dying a couple of times. They're all mistakes and they all happen to everybody.

And it has happened just as frequently. I remember hearing of it when I was growing up. I just don't think it was reported to the extent that it is now.

And I was thinking of such a device just the other day. Cars are equipped with microphones nowadays anyway. Have it monitor when the car's not running, and anything that sounds like an occupant in the car after two minutes gets the windows lowered. Maybe a few honks of the horn. This sort of logic is happening constantly in modern cars anway, so why not? I for one don't have such bitter animosity towards people who fuck up that I'd consider taking them into consideration knock on humanity.

[orcus116]

I see where you're coming from Barto but like others I just can't wrap my head around being so absent minded as to leave an infant in the car. We're not talking about a cup of coffee here, we're talking about something that a parent (supposedly) takes great care of and looks after constantly so I just can't process the notion of suddenly forgetting they're there. Like the campaign tick mentioned, "Where's Baby?", they have one radio ad with a woman they try to make sound so apologetic in this "haha whoops!" kind of way like she just left something on the stove too long that it's hard to listen to.

What I really wonder is how many of these child car deaths are attributed to actually forgetting about a kid in the car vs parents thinking "I'll just run in the store for a second" and leaving the kid there on purpose.

[Tick]

I have the simple solution so no child ever gets left in a back seat and forgotten.
Here it is...you strap the kid in the car seat and then you place your cell phone in the seat with the child. Problem solved! Because no one would ever leave their cell phone behind! God forbid you try to live 15 minutes without that device! Its apparently more important than life itself!

[Kotowboy]

If I was a car company CEO and I got told I had to install a device which tells you your child is inside - i'd be like " No. Fuck. That ".

I wouldn't touch it with a mile long pole.


I wouldn't want to get sued by people who were trying to get compensation for their own stupidity.

[Tick]

If I was a car company CEO and I got told I had to install a device which tells you your child is inside - i'd be like " No. Fuck. That ".

I wouldn't touch it with a mile long pole.


I wouldn't want to get sued by people who were trying to get compensation for their own stupidity.

Egg zac lee!

[El Barto]

I have the simple solution so no child ever gets left in a back seat and forgotten.
Here it is...you strap the kid in the car seat and then you place your cell phone in the seat with the child. Problem solved! Because no one would ever leave their cell phone behind! God forbid you try to live 15 minutes without that device! Its apparently more important than life itself!

And yet people lose their cellphones all the time.

And I'm not trying to defend people who fuck up and kill their kids (which happens in plenty more ways that just cooking them in the Escalade). I'm just surprised that people get so riled up about it that they actually get bent out of shape that people would want another failsafe in the form of cars doing what they pretty much already do.

[bout to crash]

I think it's a fucking ridiculous idea. Like orcus said, it's not the same as leaving a random item in the car. It's a living thing that you are caring for. I could see how a person might initially start to walk away from the car without a baby, if it's been sleeping/quiet or whatever... but that thing has been screaming at you and demanding your attention and the center of your universe for however long it's been alive- how the hell do you just forget it exists?! I agree that such a device would also put too much liability on the car companies when it is nowhere near their responsibility to ensure that you take care of your own kid properly.

[ich bin besser]

Quite pathetic if you ask me, but that's where things seems to be heading. Finding reasons to exonerate yourself from your own actions and hold someone else liable for your mistake.

We're already there, sadly...

[Kotowboy]

We are.

People sue tobacco companies for giving them cancer and sue McDonalds for making them fat and unhealthy.

[hefdaddy42]

I'll be 50 this year and I lived through the 70's, 80's,90's, 2000's, and its now 2014. Never do I remember growing up hearing story after story of parents leaving there children in vehicles to fry.

You're hearing about it more often and about more of them because we are now a news-saturated society with a 24/7 news cycle.  It has always happened, I will be 42 next week and I remember incidents like this happening even when I was a kid.

And this idea about a device in the car is ludicrous.

[El Barto]

Despite everybody's inability to understand how it happens, the fact remain that it does happen. People occasionally act carelessly and occasionally kids die as a result. Eating marbles. Drowning in a paint bucket. Hanged by curtain strings. I'm not trying to excuse any of these examples, but they do and will continue to occur and getting miffed about the parents being stupid won't change that.

As for the liability aspect, I don't get that at all. Shitbag lawyers area always going to find reasons to sue companies. Seems more likely to me that a car maker gets sued for not providing such a system when they 99% exist anyway. Somebody taps your window and the lights start blinking, the horn annoys everybody in the neighborhood and Sarah from On-Star calls to see how you're doing.

So is it more important to have Sarah call the police because somebody's steeling your stereo than because there's a screaming kid in a powered down vehicle? If we were talking about a huge cost then I'd understand and agree with the concerns. You guys are objecting on principle, and that makes zero sense to me.

[Chino]

I agree with Barto 100% on this one.

[orcus116]

Barto, I can't agree. Putting some kind of system in a car would be giving people an excuse to be less responsible which is a huge problem nowadays. I also don't see where a car company would be more likely to get sued for not having some sort of feature because the actions of a parent or any adult are not their responsibility. Even if they did get sued for not having something installed I find it highly unlikely that the car company would be found at fault at all as opposed to some kid dying in a car with some sort of system and the parents lawyers throwing absolutely all blame at the car company.

[Kotowboy]

Somebody taps your window and the lights start blinking, the horn annoys everybody in the neighborhood and Sarah from On-Star calls to see how you're doing.

That sounds just like a line from a Chuck palahniuk novel.

[Phoenix87x]

There is no justifiable excuse for allowing your child to die in the car.

End of story

[Dr. DTVT]

I actually do know someone whose kid as left in a car.  In that case the baby was left in the car because morning routine was disrupted and the baby was sleeping, so she was quiet.  It's not that these things didn't happen before, but they happen more now since there are more two working parent families and fewer one car families, and it is much easier to be distracted by cell phone calls.

It is real easy to to get upset about dead babies, but comparing today to twenty years ago is not a fair comparison because the realities of life today are much different than they used to be.  When it is accidental, the guilt the person feels is enough, they don't need anonymous people jumping down their throats as well.

Barto, thank you for being a voice of reason here.

[TioJorge]

I think the thread title would make an awesome punk band.

[bout to crash]

 , totally agree! I actually couldn't help laughing when I first saw the title because I thought something similar.

Mason, I don't mean to discount the horrible feelings these people must have when they do this accidentally. I just don't think car companies should be expected to try and develop a solution to it- it could lead to larger issues and it's really not their responsibility. Back to Barto's idea, what if they did develop a system that lowered the windows when there was a possible noise in the car (maybe a baby, maybe a dog, maybe just the system being buggy) and then someone's car got robbed?

[El Barto]

Barto, I can't agree. Putting some kind of system in a car would be giving people an excuse to be less responsible which is a huge problem nowadays. I also don't see where a car company would be more likely to get sued for not having some sort of feature because the actions of a parent or any adult are not their responsibility. Even if they did get sued for not having something installed I find it highly unlikely that the car company would be found at fault at all as opposed to some kid dying in a car with some sort of system and the parents lawyers throwing absolutely all blame at the car company.

Half the functionality of modern cars is specifically there to mitigate driver carelessness, and the other half is there to facilitate it.  My boss's car won't let you start it up without putting on your seatbelt and depressing the brake pedal. It has all wheel stability control. It'll fuck with you if it thinks you're falling asleep. If you put it into reverse it swithces to backup camera view on the dash, God forbid people have to turn their heads around, and squawks at you if you're too close to something. I'm willing to bet that if I put it into reverse and tried to punch it into some shit kid on tricycle the car would object and stop me. That car will also haul some solid ass and features an integrated cell, entertainment and GPS system that involves turning all sorts of knobs that aren't easy to locate and frankly caused me a fair bit of distraction.

Where's the liability concern about backup cameras? Why no terror about GM getting sued because some asshole fell asleep at the wheel and the car didn't gently nudge him back to consciousness? Look, there is a valid reason that somebody might object to the screaming baby thing, but liability isn't one of them, and this notion of personal responsibility is just fucking batshit lunacy. I astonished that I'm even having to explain this here.

[Grizz]

Barto is totally right. The car companies should not be held to any liability, but I don't think that adding failsafes is a harmful idea.

And if your car gets mugged because you left your infant/dog to die, tough shit, don't do that.

[Dr. DTVT]

I said nothing about car companies adding features.  I was just saying that people shouldn't be judging the parents.

[bout to crash]

Do you mean shouldn't?

Barto is totally right. The car companies should not be held to any liability, but I don't think that adding failsafes is a harmful idea.

And if your car gets mugged because you left your infant/dog to die, tough shit, don't do that.

You missed part of my point- what if your baby ISN'T in there? What if the system isn't perfect and another type of noise sets it off? Or what if you run into the store for a few minutes and your dog is in the car? You're likely not putting it in harm's way, especially if it's not the dead of summer, but the car doesn't know that- it will just open the windows and leave the dog/your car/possessions vulnerable.

[El Barto]

Do you mean shouldn't?

Barto is totally right. The car companies should not be held to any liability, but I don't think that adding failsafes is a harmful idea.

And if your car gets mugged because you left your infant/dog to die, tough shit, don't do that.

You missed part of my point- what if your baby ISN'T in there? What if the system isn't perfect and another type of noise sets it off? Or what if you run into the store for a few minutes and your dog is in the car? You're likely not putting it in harm's way, especially if it's not the dead of summer, but the car doesn't know that- it will just open the windows and leave the dog/your car/possessions vulnerable.

Way to go raising reasonable objections. 

In the first scenario I don't see it hurting your odds much. If somebody wants to steal your shit they're going to. In the unlikely event that your car bugs and lowers the windows, and during that brief opportunity somebody decides to rip you off, then that's unfortunate, but probably no more likely than somebody just deciding to rip you off anyway. And as an aside, don't leave valuables in your car. As for your second scenario, you leave a dog in the car and somebody's going to break your window out, rendering the point moot. People really get wigged out about animal welfare.

As for practical solutions for these problems, seems to me that it should be disableable for us non-breeders. Anybody with a kid would be foolish to disable it by, and those of us without can shut it off. It's just going to be part of the stereo anyway. Also, since cars are pretty nicely climate controlled, why wouldn't the internal temperature be a consideration, as well? And BTW, I think this feature actually does exist in cop cars equipped to carry Laddie around. Cops have been known to cook their K9s on occasion and as a reaction their cars will start and fire up the AC if it gets too hot when the dog's aboard.

[orcus116]

Barto is totally right. The car companies should not be held to any liability, but I don't think that adding failsafes is a harmful idea.

The second one of these failsafes don't work and a kid dies the car company now gets held liable for a negligent death when the kid shouldn't have been left in the car in the first place. I see where Barto is coming from that shit happens frequently so why not try to improve the situation if the technology exists but I just don't think it's fair to give bad parents an out especially in this day and age where people look for something/someone else to blame for mistakes before actually admitting to them.

[Jaffa]

It might give bad parents an out if their kid dies, but it might also prevent their kid from dying.  Seems like a reasonably fair deal to me. 

[TempusVox]

There are already anti-theft devices for cars that detect a human heartbeat in the car and then phones the police. Could be a very simple adjustment to do the same for kids left inside I would assume. But if were going to do anything to cars it should be a mandatory function that disables texting when the car is running. I see assholes every day driving all over the fucking road while they're either texting or talking on their phones.
I mean, hey sorry about your baby lady; and your overworked, stressed out, clueless dolt of a husband- but your teenager just took out a whole fucking family because she HAD to text some inconsequential bullshit drivel to her boyfriend Todd. So yeah. 

[rumborak]

Do you mean shouldn't?

Barto is totally right. The car companies should not be held to any liability, but I don't think that adding failsafes is a harmful idea.

And if your car gets mugged because you left your infant/dog to die, tough shit, don't do that.

You missed part of my point- what if your baby ISN'T in there? What if the system isn't perfect and another type of noise sets it off? Or what if you run into the store for a few minutes and your dog is in the car? You're likely not putting it in harm's way, especially if it's not the dead of summer, but the car doesn't know that- it will just open the windows and leave the dog/your car/possessions vulnerable.

Jackie, I think you're underestimating the quality of such a system if it were to be integrated. Features into cars get essentially under the same scrutiny as medical devices. They need to operate at an insane accuracy with little to no false alarms.
Besides, a car that would have it will have many ways of bringing down the temperatures. For example, turn on the AC. Or, On-Star like, contact the owner of the car when the temperature exceeds a certain limit, with a passenger inside.

I have no problem with this. We're fully on the way to the self-driving car anyway, and that will remove the weakest point in driving. The human driver. When I see during my various sports activities how woefully inept people are at basic spatial coordination, it scares me those people are allowed to control a several ton projectile.

[Tick]

I said nothing about car companies adding features.  I was just saying that people shouldn't be judging the parents.

I disagree 1000%! I am a parent who guards his daughter like a Lion guards a cub! I WILL judge any parent harshly who is fucking stupid enough to lose a child because they forgot about them in a car!
I am an over cautious parent and proud of it! I held my daughters hand crossing the street till she was probably 10 and she finally said.."dad, really?"
Leaving your most precious possession in the world to die because you were distracted by life is NOT acceptable in any way shape or form for me. Period!

Sorry...I get a bit riled up at times.

[bout to crash]

Do you mean shouldn't?

Barto is totally right. The car companies should not be held to any liability, but I don't think that adding failsafes is a harmful idea.

And if your car gets mugged because you left your infant/dog to die, tough shit, don't do that.

You missed part of my point- what if your baby ISN'T in there? What if the system isn't perfect and another type of noise sets it off? Or what if you run into the store for a few minutes and your dog is in the car? You're likely not putting it in harm's way, especially if it's not the dead of summer, but the car doesn't know that- it will just open the windows and leave the dog/your car/possessions vulnerable.

Jackie, I think you're underestimating the quality of such a system if it were to be integrated. Features into cars get essentially under the same scrutiny as medical devices. They need to operate at an insane accuracy with little to no false alarms.
Besides, a car that would have it will have many ways of bringing down the temperatures. For example, turn on the AC. Or, On-Star like, contact the owner of the car when the temperature exceeds a certain limit, with a passenger inside.

I have no problem with this. We're fully on the way to the self-driving car anyway, and that will remove the weakest point in driving. The human driver. When I see during my various sports activities how woefully inept people are at basic spatial coordination, it scares me those people are allowed to control a several ton projectile.

What about car alarms? They're always going off by accident and shit. Car features may be under a lot of scrutiny, but there are also recalls and things that happen all the time. In fact, I just got a notice in the mail telling me I have to bring my car to get my KEY fixed because there's a problem with it that could increase my risk of crash, injury or fatality. My key, for fuck's sake! Haven't they perfected those by now? 

As an aside, if self-driving cars ever become mandatory, I will be done with cars. There is no fucking way I trust something like that, sorry. And no offense, but I think it's absurd that you're actually looking forward to that day. I'm not denying that there are complete idiots out there driving and putting everyone at risk on a daily basis, but there is wayyyy too much room for error there. Also, it wouldn't be fun anymore. That's just lame.

[rumborak]

Things are recalled in cars because there's 5 occurrences in one million where it malfunctioned. It's not they're particularly unsafe, it's just that everybody hears about them.
The top 3 causes for car accidents are: drunk driving, speeding and distracted driving. All three of them are human causes. If you take the human out of the equation, you are bound to reduce accidents.

Regarding the joy of driving, while I can see that for a road trip, I'm pretty sure that if you presented people with the option "you can either drive to and from work for an hour through gridlock, or you could get work done during the commute and count that time towards your work time (thus having more time at home)", I'm reasonably sure what the answer would be.

EDIT: A quote from a motorist site: "Over 95% of motor vehicle accidents (MVAs, in the USA, or Road Traffic Accidents, RTAs, in Europe) involve some degree of driver behavior combined with one of the other three factors. Drivers always try to blame road conditions, equipment failure, or other drivers for those accidents. When the facts are truthfully presented, however, the behavior of the implicated driver is usually the primary cause. Most are caused by excessive speed or aggressive driver behavior."

[El Barto]

EDIT: A quote from a motorist site: "Over 95% of motor vehicle accidents (MVAs, in the USA, or Road Traffic Accidents, RTAs, in Europe) involve some degree of driver behavior combined with one of the other three factors. Drivers always try to blame road conditions, equipment failure, or other drivers for those accidents. When the facts are truthfully presented, however, the behavior of the implicated driver is usually the primary cause. Most are caused by excessive speed or aggressive driver behavior."

Curious where those stats come from. Traditionally excessive speed has always been a low contributor. The number one issue was people driving too slow. They taught that in defensive driving for years, then decided that it didn't sound like something should be teaching and combined both factors into "unsafe speeds," which obviously implies driving too fast.

[rumborak]

I would be surprised if excessive speed wasn't a solid contributor. Mind you, that includes driving 50mph on an icy road.