Despite constant warnings, children continue to die agonizing deaths while trapped in hot cars in the summer.
Now, at long last, there is a bill proposed that might – repeat, might – help stop these needless, horrifying deaths. The new bill, dubbed the “HOT CARS Act,” would require cars to be equipped with an alert system to notify the driver a passenger is in the back seat after the vehicle is turned off.
Oh, we can just hear the chorus of howls right now. What?! More laws? More regulations? Yes! More regulations. If such laws and regulations save even one child from the unspeakably painful death of “baking to death” in a hot car, yes, it’s all worth it. Years ago, there was a case in Arkansas in which two explorers went looking in caves while leaving two toddlers in their car. The little girl, while dying, had literally torn out her hair as the broiling heat took her little life. It’s unbearable to ponder, but one must wonder if in a few cases, a parent purposely kills a child in that horrendous way.
However, most of these deaths are caused by parents who are in a hurry, tired, too busy, too worn down by daily habits that cause them to forget a precious child is in the back seat of the car. None of us can imagine the undying, everyday grief that hounds such parents the rest of their lives. A simple electronic beep-beep reminder would surely have prevented such terrible tragedies.
In the United States, more than 800 children have died of heat stroke in cars since 1990, nine of them so far this year.
The most common causes of leaving children in hot cars are a change in morning or afternoon car-route routine, simple distractions, stress or fatigue.
Already, cars are equipped with warning sounds for such factors as leaving the keys in the ignition, seatbelts not being buckled and even low tire pressure. That kind of warning technology already exists. It makes a lot of sense to have audio warnings that a baby or toddler is in the back seat. The bill before the U.S. Congress is officially known as “Helping Overcome Trauma for Children Alone in Rear Seats (HOT CARS) Act of 2017.” It has lots of bi-partisan support and is sponsored by Reps. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), Peter King (R-New York) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois). During committee hearings, those representatives heard heart-breaking testimony from parents and grandparents of children who died in hot cars.
One of the people who gave testimony was Norman Collins, grandfather of a boy who died in a hot car in 2011. This is what he said:
“I call upon our lawmaking government officials to assist in the effort by supporting and passing the HOT CARS Act to save lives and avoid any more families having to endure the lifelong horror of grief that ours and so many other families have encountered due to the preventable tragedies of hot-car deaths. Please help us to turn our pain into power, our tragedy into triumph and our agony into positive action.”
Please persuade our representative, Tom Emmer, to give his full support to the HOT CARS Act.
