<p>And appropriate measures should be taken to insure the children’s safety & wellbeing.
Such as the recent arrest of one young mother when she left her children in the car for 15 min at 9:30pm.
I do think society needs to provide a greater safety net for these families. And I have tried to advocate for that.</p>
<p>From the Connecticut article:
PLEASE do not leave kids or pets in the car.</p>
<p>One of the incidents mentioned in the above article happened when the temps were in the 60s. If you haven’t read the article posted by rebbeccar, I strongly recommend it.</p>
<p>^^ I read the article (not all of it, I read parts of it) and it is very powerful. I am dying inside for those parents. Very upsetting. I’m not surprised the article won a Pulitzer.</p>
<p>Oh wow. That article deserved a Pulitzer. Brought tears to my eyes, so Im grateful for sunglasses. </p>
<p>I read the article rebeccar posted a few years ago. It is excellent and heart wrenching. </p>
<p>We once forgot to pick up our daughter from day camp. She was in elementary school. It was summer, different routine every week pretty much. Obviously, not picking up the kid isn’t any kind of immediate risk to their safety but the type of lapse is very similar. Change in routine-- sometimes i picked up, sometimes husband did, depending on various factors. Most of the true accidents with kids in cars involve a change in routine. So I can see how forgetting can happen and I would encourage parents of babies to develop some kind of reminder system. </p>
<p>Its not similar to me because in the case of the kid in the car, they are actually IN the car with you.
Not across town waiting to be picked up.
If you are that much of a space cadet, you should not even be driving a car.</p>
<p>If a kid is asleep in a carseat facing backwards it’s not that different. If you are focused on the fact that your kid is back there every second of the drive, that might keep your focus off the road so maybe you shouldn’t drive in that case either. </p>
<p>Emeraldkity, read the article, if you haven’t already. These parents are not space cadets. It happened to a pediatrician, a scientist, a dentist, a soldier. These are highly successful people and were doting parents. The article goes into the science of memory and the different parts of the brain that function for us to remember things. It isn’t as cut and dried as one would like to think.</p>
<p>How many of us can say that we have never driven past our destination because we are on autopilot and are used to going to a different place? Or we go all day thinking it is a different day of the week. These kind of lapses are not that far from what it takes to create a tragic event.</p>
<p>I like the idea of having your shoes or purse or cell phone with the child, to be doubly sure not to forget.</p>
<p>Another option is sort of smart sensor attached to the car seat that says baby (or similar) when you turn off the ignition and have a weight in the car seat, like when you forget to fasten your seatbelt. </p>
<p>I totally agree that most of these incidents are just terrible accidents and truly sympathize with the parents. But this particular incident seems fishy to me and, IMO, might not have been an accident. However, everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial. I hope both sides have excellent lawyers, I’m looking forward to the trial. (regardless of whether he killed his child, this guy seems pretty sleazy - ewww)</p>
<p>I can understand that it can accidentally happen. I can’t understand using this as a method of homicide unless you really, really hate the victim. And having two parents come to the idea that this is a good way to get rid of their child, it’s really hard to fathom that. But there is all kind of evil in this world. The father’s sexting doesn’t really speak to intent, actually he could use that to say he’s a sex addict and it caused him to not think of Cooper all day. This seems to be the new normal for a lot of people, all these social-sexual apps, but sorry, gross.</p>
<p>Here is a news link that shows exactly where the car was parked. It discusses the tests that are being conducted about the temperatures in that car.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/10/justice/georgia-hot-car-toddler-death/index.html?hpt=hp_t1”>http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/10/justice/georgia-hot-car-toddler-death/index.html?hpt=hp_t1</a></p>
<p>They are scrutinizing his phone/email activity, health records, and now the wife is lawyering up.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The pulitzer article addresses this too. There are a couple of products that have been developed to prevent parents from forgetting. One was developed by NASA engineers after a NASA colleague left his child in a car with fatal results (yup, even a NASA scientist can do it). Problem is twofold. Liability. If you develop a product and it fails…yikes. The other problem is that people don’t want to buy the product because they don’t believe that this will ever happen to them.</p>
<p>In terms of THIS particular death. I absolutely believe it was intentional. Why would someone choose this method? Because, if the dad hadn’t been the sloppiest, stupidest criminal on the planet, it would be easy to believe that it happened the way that he says. He did his research about this. He knew (or thought) that if there was no “malicious intent” he would not be arrested and even if he was, he would get off. No toxic substances, no bruises to explain beyond those that the poor baby acquired in his struggle in the car. Only a forgetful dad. He was willing to accept whatever shame came his way for leaving his son in the car because the idea of being free of him, or collecting his insurance money or whatever it was that motivated the monster was worth it in the end. And, as he stated in a text to one of his “correspondents” he has no conscience.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He admitted that? Is there a link for that?</p>
<p>I’ll see if i can find it. It was before the child’s death when he was corresponding with a woman. She asked if he had a conscience (probably references his marital status and the fact that he liked to send pictures of his penis to strangers). His reply was “no”.</p>
<p>It came out during the probable cause hearing.
<a href=“http://www.hlntv.com/article/2014/07/03/justin-ross-harris-cooper-toddler-hot-car-death-live-blog”>http://www.hlntv.com/article/2014/07/03/justin-ross-harris-cooper-toddler-hot-car-death-live-blog</a></p>
<p>With respect to accidentally leaving a child in the car, I think this is one of those things that many people feel the need think could never, ever happen to them–and thus, it’s necessary to imagine that those to whom it happens are somehow different from them (and thus, blameworthy). I don’t see it that way–I think this is something very unusual and unpredictable, and that most of the people to whom it happens aren’t much different from anybody else.</p>
<p>I agree Hunt, accept that I do think it is predictable. That article talks about how this never happened at all until we started putting children in the back seat. It is a fairly new phenomenon. You take that combine it with parents who are multitasking, a break in the routine, etc and you have the perfect storm. The best suggestion I read was to keep a large teddy bear in the car seat at all times. When you put the child in, move the bear to the front seat to remind you that the child is there.</p>