Hot Car Deaths-Taking Action for Prevention: KidsandCars.org

By The Cagle Law Firm | July 29, 2025 | Car Accidents, Featured, Personal Injury

Tragedy Prompts Safety Reminders

If you have watched the news, you have heard about the hot car death of a 3 year-old child in Alabama.  Every few years one of these stories breaks nationally, usually in the summer, and people respond in horror and condemnation. We are not offering any opinions about the Alabama tragedy. While this tragedy has a lot of attention and because we are in the midst of summer, it is a great time to talk about an organization that provides real solutions for parents and caregivers in preventing these tragedies.  According to KidsandCarsSafety.org, in order to put this nightmare in perspective, there have been 1,141 children who have died in hot cars in the US since 1990. And, at least 7,500 children who have survived with various injury since 1990-2024.  There have ben 16 of these hot car deaths in the US thus far in 2025.  These high numbers in no way mean that we should relegate the death to just another unfortunate tragedy.  Quite the opposite.

As a parent or caregiver, it is impossible to read about one of these stories and think about it sounding reasonable.  Our first instinct is to think, “What in the world was that parent doing?” or “How could a caregiver be so careless?” and we often must console ourselves that we are simply too careful as a parent to let something like that happen.  That was our thought process  upon becoming familiar with this issue around 2010.  Why did we become familiar?  We had attorneys and staff who had become new parents, and we were launched into thinking obsessively about child safety as all new parents. The idea that you could inadvertently leave your child in a hot car is so repulsive, we have to think it can’t ever happen to us!    The numbers of hot car deaths and all of the dangers surrounding a simple parked car in our driveway scared us to death!  We all work so hard to childproof our homes, chose and install the best child car safety seat only to discover there are so  many dangers simply sitting in our driveway.

We encountered KidsandCarsSafety about 17 years ago and we learned a lot about  hot car deaths, rollovers, backovers, and car thefts.  However, KidsandCarsSafety did not just scare us to death with the dangers, they provided inexpensive layered safety strategies to prevent these tragedies. They do a great deal more, but they are such a helpful resource to parents and caregivers.

What Kinds of Parents Leave Their Kids in a Hot Car?

If that was your first question, I encourage you to look up some of those families and their stories.  We actually did a little deeper dive into how this could happen, so we could figure out best preventions.   When we read the stories about parents involved in these tragedies, they seemed a lot like us. They seemed that way, because many are.  These tragedies happen to the best of parents.   KidsandCarSaftey is one of the few organizations that focuses on the dangers of children and vehicles, and not motor vehicle collisions. They focus on the many dangers involving children and vehicles parked or in the driveway.  To be clear, small children should never be left purposely in the car as a matter of safety. In many states, it is simply against the law.

What kind of parent inadvertently leaves their child in a hot car?  A parent that has routines, carefully monitors their children, works, shops, socializes and operates on very little sleep. You know that parent because it describes most of us.  The phenomenon of parents inadvertently leaving children in hot cars is rooted in the psychology of memory and routine.  Most of the time, inadvertently leaving a child in the car is not a sign of carelessness but a failure of “prospective memory”, the system responsible for remembering future actions, to override habit memory, which operates on autopilot.    This failure can be triggered by stress, exhaustion, distraction and a change in routine.  Autopilot is when habit memory system takes over.  Have you ever driven home and not remembered it because you were in autopilot (not impaired).  In some instances, the brain may even create a false memory.  Since you drop your child off a daycare every day, your brain may create the false memory you already have while on autopilot.

IT IS SOME SCARY STUFF!

What Can I Do to Protect My Child and My Sanity?  It is absolutely insane to imagine all the different ways your small child can be hurt in the span of mere seconds in your home, let alone outside of it.  Seventeen years ago we were thrilled to get a hold of the safety recommendations provided by KidsandCarsSafety.  KidsandCarSafety has a PDF on “Childproof Your Ride” that really makes you think about every way your car can be a danger zone for your child.  Some of their reminders are below:

Inexpensive Reminders/Alerts to Protect Your Child

• Place a personal item like a purse, phone or briefcase in the back seat forcing you to check the back seat before you leave your car.
• Place a stuffed animal or toy in the child’s seat when it’s empty and move it to the front seat when the child is in the back as a visual reminder
• Have a plan with your childcare provider, such as them calling you if your child doesn’t arrive as scheduled.
• Always lock your car doors and trunk even when the car is parked at home in order to prevent children from entering unattended vehicles
• Look Before You Lock– make a routine to open the back door of your car every time you park
• Set an alarm on your cell phone or computer calendar to remind you to drop off your child to child care. Make the ringtone different than your normal reminder tones

In many states, leaving your small children unattended in the car is a crime.  At 80 degrees outside temperature, a car can reach 100 degrees in a short amount of time.  Experts advise that you should not leave your small children in the car even when you are just popping into the local convenience store.  Experts recommend pay at the pump and utilizing drive thru services when possible if needed.

Parents Speaking Out So “We don’t have to go through this again”

The number of parents, grandparents and caregivers that have inadvertently left their small children in the car and suffered catastrophe take up an advocacy position to prevent other hot car deaths.  It is really unimaginable how a parent in this situation ever recovers.  Some parents of tragedy become advocates for safety and lobbying for child safety laws.  A safety measure as simple as an emergency trunk release required by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Administration has saved many lives. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 401 required a release latch inside the trunk compartment. Every vehicle sold after September 1, 2001 required those emergency truck releases. Advocacy groups such as KidsandCarsSafety lobbied for this safety feature and are currently lobbying for many more.  As technology improves at a massive rate, it is promising the number of safety features in the future to prevent completely preventable tragedies.

Awareness was a gift.  When we became familiar with the actual dangers and had tools and reminders to combat those dangers,  we felt empowered as parents. It was not good enough to just scare us to death, we needed actions we could take to protect our kids and our sanity. (One can absolutely be disabled by the anxiety of all of the dangers when it comes to protecting small children)

Prior Hot Car Deaths Prosecuted

In June 2014, a father, Justin Ross Harris left his 22 month-old son in the back seat of his SUV as he was going to his job at Home Depot corporate office in Georgia.  He locked his car around 9:30 a.m. and the child is suspected to have died by Noon. Around 4:15 p.m., Harris returned to his car, drove two miles before noticing his son in the back seat.  Harris pulled into a shopping center parking lot and removed the child’s body. Harris was arrested and charged with murder.  In September that same year, Harris was indicted for murder and various felony murder charges. Harris pled not guilty to all charges.  In September 16, 2016, Harris went on trial for murder of his 22 month-old child and a jury found him guilty and the judge sentenced him to life in prison.

In June 2022, the Georgia Supreme court overturned Harris’ murder conviction. Harris’ wife had filed for divorce in 2016. In later interviews, Harris’ ex-wife cited several reasons for the divorce including extramarital material that had been illuminated in the murder investigation. However, she always supported that her ex-husband had not intentionally harmed their 22 month-old child.

Pediatric Heatstroke, Fatalities Caused by Being Left in Motor Vehicles, Dec 2021

Researchers analyzed 541 cases of children dying after being left in hot vehicles from Jan 1, 2000-Dec 31, 2016.  Of those 541 cases, 528  involved one child and 13 of which involved 2 or more children.  Deaths were documented in 45 states. Most were accidental and occurred in home driveways and apartment complex parking lots. The authors found that heat-related deaths rose over their 26-year study period. They also noted that authorities pursued criminal charges in 58% of cases. These researchers are affiliated with KidsandCarsSafety and devote their work to improving safety for children in and around cars. Pediatric Heatstroke Fatalities Caused by Being Left in Motor Vehicles,-Authors: Hammet, Deborah DO; Kennedy, Thomas, MD; Selbst, Stevent, M, MD; Rollins, Amber BSW; Fennell, Janette, E. BA

Hot Car Deaths Are Way Too Frequent

Hot car deaths are a leading cause of death in vehicles (excluding crashes) and can be a four-season threat. In 2024, there were 39 hot car deaths, up from 29 in 2023 according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. KidsandCarSAfety provide the most complete data on the topic of hot car deaths.

• Almost three-fourths of children who died in vehicular heatstroke, also known as vehicular hyperthermia, were 2 years old or younger.
• Although 53% had been forgotten in parked automobiles, 24% got into a vehicle on their own.
• The 10 states where pediatric vehicular heatstroke was most common are Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. During the summer months, it can easily happen in all of the lower 48 states.

Tragedies We All Can Prevent

These stories get national attention because they are so horrifying.  When these failures occur, it is often several errors that occur for this to happen. If a parent or caregiver is simply reckless and purposely leaves a child in a car, it is hard to think anyone can argue against criminal charges. What the experts find is that predominantly, these are not purposeful acts. (Every situation has a different set of facts and we are not passing judgement on any of the situations).  The thing that gave us some peace as parents at The Cagle Law Firm was that there are safety reminders and alerts for layered safety.  Honestly, having reminders/alerts in place help quash quite a bit of parental anxiety.

In truth, when these stories hit the news, there are a lot of opinions.  Yet, it might be almost impossible to really put oneself in the shoes of one of these parents who inadvertently left their child in a hot car.  Personally, most of us do not want to even sit in that space reckoning with those feelings of loss, grief, horror, guilt and a myriad of other hellish feelings.

Again, we do not know all of the facts regarding the child that died last week in Alabama. Nor can we imagine the pain of the parents or the adult responsible for the child’s care.  We all might hold tight our judgement and condemnation of a caregiver or parent until we know the full facts. We have read parental accounts after these tragedies, and often they report that it matters little about the world’s judgment because it does not begin to match their own self loathing and guilt.

It is challenging to be a parent, yet is is one of the greatest jobs any of us can ever have.  If increasing awareness about safety alerts can save one child, then it’s worth the effort. Again, we cannot support KidsandCarsSafety more for their educational and advocacy efforts.  If you haven’t familiarized yourself with that organization, we highly recommend it.

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