Maintain air circulation and air conditionning when living presence is detected in the habitacle maintain temperature compatible with life. If needed, crack the windows open automatically.
There you go, that's one thing...provide a hole at the top of the heat pile...the window cracking option could be one but it is not fail safe. Maybe the top of the roof is open all the time unless the ignition is on. That way if all power fails, there would be air flow through the interior.
Next human detection. That's nice, but if the roof was solar panels, it could power up a good sized fan. With 100W for example, I was able to power a car radiator fan and that's like a house extractor fan.
Parenting pro tip: Once the car seat is installed, check it every time you leave the car. Even before the baby is born, even if you are currently holding the baby.
Nah, one of my coworkers made dashboard cookies and lasagna all the time. It takes a bit longer than in an oven, but she would come in around 1pm just after lunch with a fresh baked tray of cookies regularly, and occasionally told us all not to eat lunch as she had a lasagna or casserole baking in her car. This was in Phoenix, AZ, so that probably affects things a bit.
So many possible factors. Family support allowing more sleep, less car-centric cities, less tradition of single parent transporting the kid around while on errands, etc etc.
The US is entirely built around car culture. Chances are you don’t get in a car for everywhere you go. In the US getting in a car to go virtually anywhere is unavoidable. This is a tiny percentage we just have so many more car trips per day than most countries.
Edit: fixing counties to countries cause autocorrect.
Let's name a country. Let's do a 1:1 comparison. I bet we can identify more logical factors than the whimsical notions of, "brain rot." I bet we can also peel back some not-so-comfortable factoids about said country, too.
An award winning journalist, the only one to have will two Pulitzers for features, this being one of them: "here's a horrifying thing that can happen to anyone."
Oh if only we were perfect little robots, amirite?
If we peel back your anonymity and examine your life from birth to death, yes, I'm sure you never had close calls and never did dumb shit, is that right?
I know I'm being pedantic but murder requires intent, it seems that the majority of these cases are manslaughter, still illegal though and just as sad.
Several people -- including Mary Parks of Blacksburg -- have driven from their workplace to the day-care center to pick up the child they’d thought they’d dropped off, never noticing the corpse in the back seat.
I always assumed that was a notice to people stealing cars from the lot.
You know. Make sure the car with the keys wasn’t left running cuz the kid was sleeping.
Definitely don’t want the 3 kinds of hell for stealing a car with a kid in it. (Cops gonna totally blame you aren’t they PIT lil’ Tommy into the ditch.)
Why leave the kid in the car at all? My kids go inside with me if the wife isn't there wanting to stay in the car. Doesn't matter if I'm going in a store for 2 minutes.
The crazy thing is that the news here in the Midwest tells people each year to put something important, like their phone, in the car seat to remember the kid.
Nobody INTENDS to leave their kid in the car to die.
Fatal Distraction is a Pulitzer Prize winning article that examines how the mind works and why this sort of incident keeps happening over and over again.
They are. The people who do this? They are you and me and your neighbor.
Check out this article: Fatal Distraction, it won a Pulitzer Prize. It's about how the mind works and why this incident keeps happening over and over again.
Skip calling the cops, if it's hot break the window THEN call the cops, same for pets. In many places this is now the fully legal thing to do. If you wait even a little bit that can be the difference, you never know how close to death they are even if moving
You can buy keychain tools for breaking windows easily, the trick is something hard and POINTY, really concentrated the force applied
The reason to call the cops right off is so they get there faster.
If the kid is going to die in the seconds it takes to make get them rolling, they’re probably going to die outside the car, too. On the other hand, the sooner they get there, the faster they get advanced care.
Additionally, it provides a bit of legal protection, having dispatch on the phone.
Also, not even animal control will break into a car- they let the cops do that. The last time I dealt with it the cops waited for them to make the call that it was necessary.
There was a puppy in the back of an suv. The window was cracked but the puppy was in a dog crate covered in blankets. The car interior was just under the threshold at like 90 or something, but the crate when they did open it was at like 105. It was a little cocker spaniel that was the sweetest little cuddle-bug.
The assholes left the dog in the back in 90-degree weather to go to a baseball game. The worst part is that they could go pick up the dog after paying a fine. That dog deserved better humans.
I thought that one was about letting the baby drive the car. Did they mention the ambient air temperature or any locally posted heat warnings in that one? Can't remember all the lyrics.
We created laws to require seat belts, maybe it’s time we create laws that require the manufacturers to install tech to detect kids and pets left in hot vehicles and alert the authorities or at the very least sound an alarm.
PIR occupancy sensor + thermometer + window open sensor + seat occupancy sensor/scale + door lock/child lock sensor + decibel limit on microphone already in car
Technically possible, yes. Most of the equipment is already there. It's just a matter of tuning everything to work together to solve the specific problem. The bigger problem in my eyes is most people would treat this as a perfect solution instead of a last resort like what happened with Tesla's FSD.
I've seen doors with motion sensor locks on the inside get defeated by vapes and inflatables. Make no mistake, this will get weaponized if implemented. It'll be the Kia boyz all over again.
That's so much thermal mass. Very little other than the sun will have the energy output to do this. Certainly not in the time it would need to take to steal a car.
The problem is with shitty zoning laws that enforce car-dependency -- people wouldn't be accidentally leaving their kids to die in hot cars if they didn't need a car to get places to begin with.
It can be done in a way that does not affect privacy. If you lock your car while there's still a person detected on the back seat, it will sound an alarm.
Some cars have that already. I rented a Hyundai Elantra recently when my car was being serviced. It came with Rear Occupant Alert. Ultrasonic sensors can detect if there's movement in the backseat when a driver exits the vehicle.
Upon detecting a small humanoid within the car after it has been locked the system automatically opens the sunroof & violently yeets the human at least 100m in a random direction to maximised it's chances of getting some shade.
I mean what about a big red panic button, if pressed starts sounding alarms while also opening the windows. Only works in immobile cars and turns off when long pressed. Done.
I was imagining more the kind of situation where a kid manages to get in and can not get out again. For babies all you need to make sure is you are not an idiot.
Check out this article: Fatal Distraction, it won a Pulitzer Prize. It's about how the mind works and why this incident keeps happening over and over again.
Almost all modern cars (made in the last few years) have some kind of warning when you turn the car off and something is weighing down the backseat. My car has it.
Though it's possible to turn it off, I think it should be required to not be toggle-able.
Gee, I didn't realize two little dings like every third time you turn off your car (if there's something on the seat) was so damn annoying. In fact, I hardly notice it even when I'm hauling stuff, which is about half the time I'm in my car.
It's not like it's the seatbelt warning that constantly goes off until you finally put on your seatbelt.
I just don't like meaningless sounds because if you get used to ignoring them, they aren't useful. You'll just ignore it when it actually matters.
Ever read stories where people get backed over by forklifts and such with the obnoxious backup sounds? It's the same thing. They're used to hearing and ignoring the sound cause it's not around them. So when it actually matters it's literally in one ear and out the other.
wasn't there something about a car theft with the child in the car and the company wouldn't give the police the gps access because the owner wasn't subscribed? that would be all that happens for this because US and Canada suck at regulating things.
