Why do an internet search about infants dying in hot cars because you are so afraid of it happening?

[JHB]

98. It's not excuses, it's prevention.

I agree with you about distracted and zombified driving, but that doesn't actually prevent it from happening again, does it?

What will prevent cases is people understanding that it can happen to them and that it is necessary to take steps to make sure it doesn't happen, as you do. Every time, so that it is just as much a part of their routine as getting into the driver's seat. Action on their part, above and beyond simply turning off the phone and leaving the GPS alone.

Phones play a part in a number of cases, but not all of them. There are plenty of other things that can distract or disrupt peoples' trains of thought. It really is the same underlying mental process as walking out without your keys -- a routine thing that gets temporarily derailed for some reason, and picked back up without realizing a step was missed. Few of those people truly "forgot" their kids, they fully believed they knew where they were but instead were remembering the dozens of other times they did the same thing and were horribly horribly wrong.

You can keep your pox because I'm not making excuses. The biggest factor in these deaths -- even above cell phones and other distractions -- is people thinking it can't happen to them because they don't see themselves as "that type of parent", that they'd never let that happen. With the possible exception of the guy in this case, you can be damn sure every one of the parents who did this fully believed that they'd never do it -- until they did.

The cause of these deaths is dismayingly simple, but prevention is even simpler -- as long as people understand that it really can happen to them and actually do the simple things to prevent it.