Devices to Protect Infants in Cars Just Don’t Work

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a study this week, showing that three separate devices designed specifically to alert drivers when infants and children are left alone in a car do not work properly. Part of a campaign to raise awareness and prevent heatstroke, the study results say that these devices are unreliable when used on their own.

According to the San Francisco State University Department of Geosciences, in 2012, 15 children and infants have died from hyperthermia from being left alone in a vehicle. Since 1998, almost 550 children have died, half of them under the age of two years old. These tragic deaths are unnecessary and several companies released products that are supposed to alert the driver if he or she walks away from the vehicle without extracting the child.

Three of those devices were tested by researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. They tested the ChildMinder Smart Clip System, the ChildMinder Smart Pad, and the Suddenly Safe Pressure Pad. The main problem they discovered was that car seats with lots of padding made it hard for the sensor to work properly.

Another problem was when the clip system would beep or malfunction, users frequently turned it off, which makes it useless. In sum, the whole thing is a mess that does not work. Nice idea, I thought.

By the way, I have been out of the blogging business and we made some structural changes to our blog. They are fixed, and I am back!