A Baton Rouge infant has died after being left in a hot car all day Tuesday when his parents forgot to drop him off at daycare. Director of child safety group Kids & Car Safety Amber Rollins says many parents don’t take hot car safety seriously enough because they believe they could never forget their child.
“It’s something that’s not going away any time soon,” she says. “So we need to be very, very careful and take those safety tips seriously.”
According to the National Safety Council, this is the 17th infant who has died after being left in a hot car this year. Rollins expects that number to increase as summer continues. She encourages parents to take hot car safety seriously even if they don’t think they need to, adding, “You’ve got families who think that this is a non-issue for them and no one’s taking precautions to prevent it because they love their children, they think about them all the time, how could they forget them?”
Rollins says changes in routine are the number one contributor to forgetting kids in cars and encourages parents to always take steps to remind themselves about children in the backseat, such as putting a stuffed animal in the passenger seat after buckling a child in.
“Check the backseat every time you leave your vehicle,” she stresses. “No matter what. And to help you get into that habit of doing that, you can put something that you can’t start your day without in the back seat.”
You can find more information about how to keep your child safe in cars at kidsandcars.org.
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