FL - Kyrese Anderson, 3, dies in hot car, Manatee County, 22 June 2013

[cityslick]

Pretty sad you need a device for basic parenting common sense.

 

[jjenny]

They drove to the babysitters house AFTER the funeral with him still in the back seat.. So very sad. This is about 20 min. from where I live.



more at link: http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/385620/28/Kyrese-Anderson-dies-in-car-while-parents-attend-funeral

They didn't drive. They left the car at the babysitters's driveway and carpooled to the funeral.

 

[jantel74]

New school buses are equipped with a feature that sounds an alarm until the driver walks to the rear of the bus and cuts it off. Presumably, the driver checks the seats for children that may be sleeping or left on the bus while walking to the rear.

 

[wfgodot]

Illinois boy, 2, died in sweltering hot car after his father strapped him into seat before passing out drunk. (Daily Mail)

 

[Donjeta]

Hubert took Nathan out to his vehicle, a black Hyundai Elantra four-door with a dark-colored interior, at about 2:30pm with plans to make a trip, according to O'Fallon Police.

Inside, a charging document says, Hubert 'consumed alcohol to a level which caused him to pass out'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...strapped-seat-passed-drunk.html#ixzz2XFBwnn3g


Excuse me? He was planning to go for a trip, put his son in a car and then blithely forgot about him and his daughter and started a drinking blitz? Or was he drunk out of his mind already when he put the child in the car and planned to go drunk driving with the kids? Only he had to come back for the girl and passed out instead?

Good grief...

 

[Trident]

Pretty sad you need a device for basic parenting common sense.

That's where I think you're wrong. It has nothing to do with "common sense", it has everything to do with being a harried parent, intent on getting to work or wherever, in today's world. It has to do with chasing the almighty dollar and/or a lack of total bonding. Children, in the old days, were never in the backseat where no one could see them. Children were held and loved. Yeah, some died in accidents, but at least they didn't BAKE to death. I often wonder who is benefiting from these car seat laws. It doesn't really seem to be the babies.

Sure, send me stats on accidents. Then send me stats on children who die from heat or cold, while strapped in their seat by parents who have so much on their minds, like making money to pay for a house or car they can't afford, or credit card bills.

Until we adopt a simpler lifestyle, this is going to keep on happening. Children may not be our top priority - MONEY is.

 

[keeponsearching]

Illinois boy, 2, died in sweltering hot car after his father strapped him into seat before passing out drunk. (Daily Mail)

Wow, what made that dad drink so much to pass out. They looked like such a happy family.

And another one to about a 5 month old earlier this month.

Nathan was the 13th child this summer. Average 38 yearly.

 

[cityslick]

That's where I think you're wrong. It has nothing to do with "common sense", it has everything to do with being a harried parent, intent on getting to work or wherever, in today's world. It has to do with chasing the almighty dollar and/or a lack of total bonding. Children, in the old days, were never in the backseat where no one could see them. Children were held and loved. Yeah, some died in accidents, but at least they didn't BAKE to death. I often wonder who is benefiting from these car seat laws. It doesn't really seem to be the babies.

Sure, send me stats on accidents. Then send me stats on children who die from heat or cold, while strapped in their seat by parents who have so much on their minds, like making money to pay for a house or car they can't afford, or credit card bills.

Until we adopt a simpler lifestyle, this is going to keep on happening. Children may not be our top priority - MONEY is.

I'm not sure if your arguing against car seat laws. Car seat laws aren't causing kids to be left alone in cars. I did find this article on stats since it was asked. Granted it is just one state, I'm sure there are national stats.

http://erstarnews.com/2012/09/24/nothing-funny-about-seat-belt-safety-statistics/

•In Minnesota since 2007, more than 15,000 children ages 0–7 were properly restrained and involved in traffic crashes, and a majority of those children (86 percent) were not injured and 12 percent sustained only minor injuries.

•In the last decade, 32 children ages 0–7 were killed in crashes and only 44 percent were properly restrained.

 

[Donjeta]

I'm pretty sure that children got sometimes left in hot cars before the car seat laws too but I think it got mostly local news coverage if that before the age of the internet. It seems to me that I know a lot these days about all kinds of weird stuff and tragic accidents that happen all over the world that I wouldn't have had a clue about in the year stone and the beanstalk unless the Reader's Digest reported it in odd news section.

 

[wfgodot]

see #24 above, someone's now done a separate thread:

Boy-2-died-sweltering-hot-car-father-strapped-seat-passed-drunk - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

 

[eileenhawkeye]

That's where I think you're wrong. It has nothing to do with "common sense", it has everything to do with being a harried parent, intent on getting to work or wherever, in today's world. It has to do with chasing the almighty dollar and/or a lack of total bonding. Children, in the old days, were never in the backseat where no one could see them. Children were held and loved. Yeah, some died in accidents, but at least they didn't BAKE to death. I often wonder who is benefiting from these car seat laws. It doesn't really seem to be the babies.

Sure, send me stats on accidents. Then send me stats on children who die from heat or cold, while strapped in their seat by parents who have so much on their minds, like making money to pay for a house or car they can't afford, or credit card bills.

Until we adopt a simpler lifestyle, this is going to keep on happening. Children may not be our top priority - MONEY is.

Are you suggesting that parents put the child on their lap while they drive?

Also, people have to chase the almighty dollar and work hard if they want to support their families in today's world. I'm just not seeing how leaving your child in the car means you're trying to live some luxurious lifestyle that you can't afford.

 

[Donjeta]

From the article linked by Perodicticus Potto:

Death by hyperthermia is the official designation. When it happens to young children, the facts are often the same: An otherwise loving and attentive parent one day gets busy, or distracted, or upset, or confused by a change in his or her daily routine, and just... forgets a child is in the car. It happens that way somewhere in the United States 15 to 25 times a year, parceled out through the spring, summer and early fall. The season is almost upon us.

Two decades ago, this was relatively rare. But in the early 1990s, car-safety experts declared that passenger-side front airbags could kill children, and they recommended that child seats be moved to the back of the car; then, for even more safety for the very young, that the baby seats be pivoted to face the rear. If few foresaw the tragic consequence of the lessened visibility of the child . . . well, who can blame them? What kind of person forgets a baby?

The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist.

15 to 25 cases every year are of course 15 to 25 cases too many but many more children would die in car crashes without proper safety equipment and did.

Many children sat in the backseat even before the era of the airbags. I used to sleep on the backseat on long car rides, no seatbelt. Just got lucky that we never had an accident.

 

[Donjeta]

I wonder if electric windows have anything to do with it. In the old models the windows opened mechanically and toddlers could operate them and at least open a window for air or to climb out or shout for help if they happened to be stuck in a car. But the car I have now, the windows are electric and they won't budge unless the car is running.

 

[LadyL]

these kinds of tragedies are prevalent when people stray from their normal routine

in this case, these parents had to take two different vehicles to drop their kids off at the babysitters and failed to communicate because they (obviously) had a family death/funeral distracting them

I'm wondering why the babysitter wouldn't ask where the 3 year-old was - not that it's her fault at all (!) but common sense would dictate that they wouldn't be taking the youngest with them ...

 

[Nova]

...But it is funny that you said that, when I read this story I was thinking "If only the family could sue someone! If a child dies fairness dictates there should always be a lawsuit." and you volunteered the perfect solution that would allow for just that very thing!

Sorry, but the fact we don't have the technology NOW doesn't prove it couldn't be developed. And it will be, but only when public pressure (perhaps in the form of lawsuits) demands it!

 

[Nova]

I'm pretty sure that children got sometimes left in hot cars before the car seat laws too but I think it got mostly local news coverage if that before the age of the internet. It seems to me that I know a lot these days about all kinds of weird stuff and tragic accidents that happen all over the world that I wouldn't have had a clue about in the year stone and the beanstalk unless the Reader's Digest reported it in odd news section.

I grew up in Florida and know there were such child fatalities in the "old days".

You're right that nowadays we hear news from a much wider area.

 

[jjenny]

Sorry, but the fact we don't have the technology NOW doesn't prove it couldn't be developed. And it will be, but only when public pressure (perhaps in the form of lawsuits) demands it!

What are they gonna sue for? Technology to remember your child is in the car? How about using common sense?

 

[musicaljoke]

Those inventions are being promoted by college students and a 7 year old not business people. There is a reason the baby seat manufacturers have NOT taken that technology mainstream and it isn't because they don't think it would sell more baby car seats.

It is because they have legal departments.

I don't buy that argument. After all, 25,000 people die in car accidents every year and cars still pour off the assembly line. Car manufacturers can easily put child alarms in vehicles.

 

[jjenny]

That's where I think you're wrong. It has nothing to do with "common sense", it has everything to do with being a harried parent, intent on getting to work or wherever, in today's world. It has to do with chasing the almighty dollar and/or a lack of total bonding. Children, in the old days, were never in the backseat where no one could see them. Children were held and loved. Yeah, some died in accidents, but at least they didn't BAKE to death. I often wonder who is benefiting from these car seat laws. It doesn't really seem to be the babies.

Sure, send me stats on accidents. Then send me stats on children who die from heat or cold, while strapped in their seat by parents who have so much on their minds, like making money to pay for a house or car they can't afford, or credit card bills.

Until we adopt a simpler lifestyle, this is going to keep on happening. Children may not be our top priority - MONEY is.

The reason children are in the backseat is for safety, not because no one should be able to see them.

 

[Nova]

What are they gonna sue for? Technology to remember your child is in the car? How about using common sense?

As a matter of fact, that's how we got air bags in cars: because people sued when manufacturers refused to include them.

But I didn't propose a lawsuit in this case; that was Sonya ribbing me.

I merely acknowledged that under our system, civil suits are often the only way to effect change.