I am shocked to read today’s news about the death of a 11 month old baby in Oakland, CA who was left in his car seat for more than 10 hours. I understand the baby’s dad forgot to drop the baby at child care while on his way to work. My heart goes out to the family on this big loss.
What perturbs me even more on this accident is when I read that every year there are about 33 similar deaths in California alone. This is really appalling and something needs to be done urgently.
While I am not condoning what this baby’s dad do in this case, but the act of forgetting is too common among human beings across a wide variety of activities and ideally our systems should be designed accordingly to send suitable warnings in case of any acts like this – specially when there is a life at risk!. As an example, if my dad starts to drive a car without wearing a safety belt, there is an alarm warning in the car – because it is unsafe to drive otherwise.
Extending this logic further, I think the situations like the unfortunate death of this child could have been avoided if auto manufacturers develop a system whereby there is an alarm which rings when the safety belts for the child seat are engaged (which means child is on the seat) AND the engine of the car is switched off for more than 2 minutes. The alarm should ideally be of a special tone and loud enough to alert nearby persons of a potential danger to a child’s life.
I really wish auto companies do something like this or similar and save our children from these unfortunate accidents.
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