Father kills himself after finding 18-month-old son dead in hot car

[Ms. Toad]

78. Have you bothered to read the article posted several places in this thread?

Most people never forget their children in the car. A few do and something reminds them in enough time that nothing bad happens. Far fewer don't get a reminder until it is too late.

These incidents nearly always happen when there is a break in the norm - and the auto-pilot part of their brain fails to kick itself out of auto-pilot to remember the break. A father taking the child to the babysitter on the way to work - when the mother does it 99% of the time, for example. We get in the car to head to work and wind up there. We wind up there - sometimes without remembering part of all of the journey. That's the part of the brain that allows this to happen.

Children, especially small children often fall asleep in the car - so there is no movement or noise to break the auto-pilot cycle. Requirements that carseats for very small children be in the back, facing the rear, remove much of the chance that there will be a visula reminder when you hop out of your car at work.

It happens. It may not have happened to you. But it happens. I never forgot my child. But I've forgotten to run an errand on the way to or from work. I've forgotten that a street I've used every day for years and years is closed - until I'm past the detour I need to take to avoid the closure. I know how the auto-pilot of my brain works well enough to know that, under a perfect storm of circumstances, I could have forgotten my child.