HOW TECHNOLOGY COULD PREVENT DEATH OF CHILD IN HOT CARS:
Updated Jul 10, 2014 4:02 PM EDT
The news is always tragic, and seems to happen far too often: a child left in a hot car is found dead of heat stroke when a caregiver forgot or did not know they were there."It could happen to anyone. This is not a bad parenting problem," laments Kristy Arbogast, the lead author of a 2012 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report on technologies to prevent heat stroke for children in hot cars. She is the co-scientific director of the Center for Injury Research an Prevention at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.A car's temperature can rise rapidly in the hot sun -- topping 120 degrees inside, on an 80 degree day -- and children should never be left alone in a parked car, not even for a minute.Could a smart car seat or some other technology help harried, distracted parents and caregivers remember to take their kids out of the car?Smart car seatsA company called TOMY International developed one possible solution.In 2013, it began selling a "smart car seat" with iAlert technology that communicates between one of TOMY's First Years Brand car seats and your smartphone. The car seat, available through Amazon for $284, has temperature, angle, and motion sensors. If the seat gets too hot, the company says it will send an alarm to your phone. The system also alerts you if the seat is installed improperly or if the child has unbuckled themselves while the car is in motion.Amazon customers gave it mixed reviews. Though the seat's comforts and non-electronic features seemed fine, a few reviewers found that the alert system was unreliable. For example, customer "Jackie D" said on July 24, 2013: "When the unit was connected, the alerts would come through 9 out of 10 times but the problem is that they should come through 10 out of 10 times. When setting up secondary contacts to receive text alerts, the alert failure rate was even higher, maybe 2 out of 10 went through and when these did go through they still took at least 10 minutes to receive."Customer "CRP Ag" commented on October 17, 2013: "Despite my reservations, if you view the alerts as another tool in your toolkit as a parent trying to keep your child safe, this is a nice innovation. Once the kinks are worked out, this will be a great device."TOMY responded on the Amazon customer review site to Jackie D's comment, promising to work with her to address the issues she raised. CBS News contacted the company's public relations firm but was unable to get a statement at press time.
Updated Jul 10, 2014 4:02 PM EDT
The news is always tragic, and seems to happen far too often: a child left in a hot car is found dead of heat stroke when a caregiver forgot or did not know they were there."It could happen to anyone. This is not a bad parenting problem," laments Kristy Arbogast, the lead author of a 2012 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report on technologies to prevent heat stroke for children in hot cars. She is the co-scientific director of the Center for Injury Research an Prevention at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.A car's temperature can rise rapidly in the hot sun -- topping 120 degrees inside, on an 80 degree day -- and children should never be left alone in a parked car, not even for a minute.Could a smart car seat or some other technology help harried, distracted parents and caregivers remember to take their kids out of the car?Smart car seatsA company called TOMY International developed one possible solution.In 2013, it began selling a "smart car seat" with iAlert technology that communicates between one of TOMY's First Years Brand car seats and your smartphone. The car seat, available through Amazon for $284, has temperature, angle, and motion sensors. If the seat gets too hot, the company says it will send an alarm to your phone. The system also alerts you if the seat is installed improperly or if the child has unbuckled themselves while the car is in motion.Amazon customers gave it mixed reviews. Though the seat's comforts and non-electronic features seemed fine, a few reviewers found that the alert system was unreliable. For example, customer "Jackie D" said on July 24, 2013: "When the unit was connected, the alerts would come through 9 out of 10 times but the problem is that they should come through 10 out of 10 times. When setting up secondary contacts to receive text alerts, the alert failure rate was even higher, maybe 2 out of 10 went through and when these did go through they still took at least 10 minutes to receive."Customer "CRP Ag" commented on October 17, 2013: "Despite my reservations, if you view the alerts as another tool in your toolkit as a parent trying to keep your child safe, this is a nice innovation. Once the kinks are worked out, this will be a great device."TOMY responded on the Amazon customer review site to Jackie D's comment, promising to work with her to address the issues she raised. CBS News contacted the company's public relations firm but was unable to get a statement at press time.
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