Cars and Heat Are a Deadly Combo — But They Don’t Have to Be

As temps start to trend upward across the country, so too does the number of children who die of heatstroke in cars. According to child-safety advocates KidsAndCars.org, 1,018 children aged 14 or under died in hot cars between 1990 and 2021. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has set National Heatstroke Prevention Day for May 1 and is urging caregivers to look before they lock their car doors.

Related: I Sit in the Hot Seat to Demonstrate Children’s In-Car Heatstroke Risk

According to research from the Department of Meteorology & Climate Science at San Jose State University, most child heatstroke fatalities occur because the child was forgotten by their caregiver. The second most common reason is that the child gained access to the vehicle on their own and became trapped.

NHTSA’s Where’s Baby? Look Before You Lock campaign aims to tackle both issues, reminding drivers to never leave children unattended in cars and to lock their cars when unoccupied to prevent children from entering. The campaign also aims to remind caregivers about the power of routines and how a routine disruption raises the risk of someone forgetting their child in the backseat.

“An average of 38 children die from heatstroke in hot vehicles each year. Many deaths happen because the morning routine is different — for example, a caregiver taking a child to daycare who typically doesn’t do the drop off,” Steven Cliff, NHTSA deputy administrator, said in a statement. “We are asking all caregivers to look before they lock because changes in daily routines can lead to tragedy in just minutes.”

What Does Heatstroke Look Like?

According to the Mayo Clinic, heatstroke is caused by prolonged exposure to high temps and occurs when a person’s body temperature rises to 104 degrees or higher. Children’s internal temperatures can reach 106 degrees in just 15 minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Signs of heatstroke include nausea or vomiting, flushed (red) skin, racing heart rate and skin that’s hot but dry to the touch. Someone with symptoms of heatstroke requires emergency medical attention.

NHTSA’s Prevention Tips

• Always lock your car when you aren’t using it. Even if you don’t have a child, a kid in your neighborhood could get into your unlocked vehicle.
• Never leave your child alone in a car, even if you think you’ll only be gone for a minute.
• Remember that heatstroke can happen even on a relatively cool day. A car’s temp can rise by 40 degrees in just 30 minutes of sitting in the sun, and a vehicle can reach a dangerous temperature in as little as 10 minutes. Rolling down a window does little to keep a vehicle cool as its surfaces heat up.
• Keep an item in the backseat — like a teddy bear or bag. Put the bear or bag up front with you when your child is in their car seat to serve as a reminder to always look at the backseat before you lock the car.
• If you see a child in distress in a vehicle, call 911 immediately and get help. Many states have Good Samaritan laws that protect citizens acting in good faith to help someone in trouble. Click here for a state-by-state list from Safe Kids.

Rear-Seat Reminder Systems in Cars

Many automakers have committed to adding a feature that could help stop these deaths. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of Global Automakers, members of which together account for nearly all vehicles sold in the U.S., have agreed to add rear-seat reminders to their vehicles by no later than the 2025 model year.

Some systems are better than others. A few automakers, such as GM, already offer a Rear Seat Reminder system that uses a chime and a message in the instrument panel to alert the driver to check the backseat if the rear doors were opened at the start of a trip. Similarly, Nissan’s Rear Door Alert system will honk the horn several times to get the driver’s attention if the rear doors were opened at the beginning of the trip but not at the end. These systems use door sequence logic to infer something is left behind rather than detect a forgotten child, which is troubling to safety advocates.

Other systems are more sophisticated but not as widespread. Hyundai and Kia have an Ultrasonic Rear Occupant Alert system that uses sensors to monitor the backseat for movement; it will alert the driver via the instrument panel by honking the horn, flashing the lights and sending an alert to Hyundai’s app.

Safety advocates want more than just voluntary action by automakers, however. Groups like KidsAndCars have spent years urging federal action on a safety standard that would require new cars to be equipped with technology to detect a child trapped inside a hot car, but progress on such a mandate has been slow. Recently, the Helping Overcome Trauma for Children Alone in Rear Seats (HOT CARS) Act was passed by Congress via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; it includes a mandate for action by the U.S. Department of Transportation aimed at preventing hot car tragedies. The timeline on the implementation of that mandate remains unclear, however.

More From Cars.com:

• Child In-Car Heatstroke Prevention Calls for High-Tech Solutions, Vigilant Parents
• High-Tech and Low-Tech Ways to Help Parents Prevent In-Car Heatstroke
• Major Automaker Groups Agree to Add Rear-Seat Reminder to Cars By 2025
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