According to www.kidsandcars.org, on average, 38 children die in hot cars each year from heat-related deaths after being trapped inside motor vehicles, that's more than 1 every 10 days.  In 2013, 44 children died at the hands of a forgetful parent or caregiver.  As sad and tragic as this is for the parent to go through, it is 100% preventable.  At the end of the day, when a person becomes a parent, it is their responsibility to take care of that child, to put that child's well being and health needs above even their own.  This epidemic is becoming even more horrific with every child's death.  People say, "I didn't think it was that hot out"... Even outside temperatures in the 60s can cause a car temperature to rise well above 110° F. When the outside temperature is 83° F, even with the window rolled down 2 inches, the temperature inside the car can reach 109° F in only 15 minutes. 

When a parent leaves a child in a car and says they "forgot" about that child, there can only be one reason for that, distractions.  That is just not a justifiable response to the issue.  You forget your cell phone, you forget to get the dry cleaning... you don't forgot a child.  A living human-- your little human.  If 44 dogs had died in cars in 2013 there would have already been "Fido's Law" enacted, classifying a dog left in a car as a felony but we leave our precious children, trapped in car seats they can not get out of and it's a "sad accident". 

Accident or not, there has to be consequences.  There has to be something that happens otherwise, this is not going to stop. If people today are so hung up on checking their phones, their Facebook and their emails as they drive to work that they can honestly say they "forgot" about their child in the back seat- that is not acceptable. 

I propose that when a child is left in a car and that child dies that the parent or responsible party is charged with Involuntary Manslaughter if the caregiver made a decision to leave their child and/or a charge of Neglect and Child Abuse for those who "forgot". 

Before everyone says to me that they feel this is too harsh and that the parent already will live the rest of their life with the thought they killed their child, this is exactly, by definition, what involuntary manslaughter and what neglect is- it can be up to the courts and the facts of the case as to the sentence. This is an issue that has to stop and the only way we can stop it is not to force car manufactures invent locks on cars that know when a kid is in the car and keeps the driver from being able to open the door or insist that car seat manufactures create a car seat that hooks into the control panel of the car that turns the car on if the temp in the seat goes up, or a mandatory attachment to car seats that connect seats to door handles (even those are great ideas but only work if people use them- if they are so busy they forget their children, it's entirely possible they will forget to hook a string to the door), it's to make people stop, slow down and think about the one thing that is most important in their life, not their job or their phone but their kids.  If there are harsher punishments for people who put their children directly in harms way, then maybe people will stop putting themselves in a situation where they could be so distracted and we could all stop senseless killing of our nations kids.  Yes, please people of America, invent new things to help people remember their kids... as odd as that sounds.  Invent new car seats that are attached to the control panel of the cars that notify the car to start when the child is in the seat and the car is off... but until it's mandatory across the board, that won't solve anything. 

I have been reading stories online for the last few years about this-- the next one is always worse that the one before as I read "I didn't know I had left them in the car" and the horrors that happen to a baby when left in a car that can reach well over 150 degrees in minutes.  This has to stop.  We have to stand up for our children because there is nothing more important. NOTHING.

 http://www.kidsandcars.org/heatstroke.html

See the faces of some of those lost..... I can't look at them any longer not knowing I didn't do everything I could to help stop more from showing up, can you?