By Matt Corkery

Messenger Staff Writer

Before the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, there was the “Hot Car Challenge.” People started sitting in their cars on hot days, filming themselves, trying to bring awareness to the problem of children being left in hot cars.  This sparked a trend, and soon a lot of parents and teens started doing the hot car challenge and posting videos on YouTube, showing that it only takes 10-20 minutes inside a locked car with the windows closed for the temperature to rise to deadly levels.

According to the Washington Post, “at least 17 children have died after being left in hot cars this year.”  No one seems to be able to understand why this keeps happening. Some people say that these parents are doing these on purpose, others are saying that they are accidents. The truth is, while some of these deaths are linked to being done on purpose, most of these are just tragic accidents.  According to the Rialto, California Police Department, 54 percent of children were “unknowingly” left in vehicles.

The main question then becomes, how do people keep forgetting their kids in cars?

The answer: distractions.

Many drivers become are so overwhelmed, stressed, or focused on many different other things, they often forget their quiet passenger in the backseat.

In Salt Lake City, April Suwyn stopped back at her home to go to the bathroom, but when there was construction by her house, she became overwhelmed and forgot her daughter in the backseat, thinking she had already dropped her daughter off at day care.  This was an accident, and reporters say, “She blames it all on herself.”

How can we prevent more babies from dying?

There are many different types of ideas, from leaving an item in the backseat in order to remember, to attaching a rope to the seat and leading it up to your dashboard, to high tech options.

Perhaps the best idea comes from eighth grader Alissa Chavez out of New Mexico. It started as a science fair project. Her new invention is one of the best and high tech out there. To use this, parents just attach a sensor pad under the carseat, and download an app on their phone that is linked to the pads. Then, when the pads detect that there is still weight in the car seat, and the parents are more than forty feet away, the best part happens. Alarms go off on the parents phone and the car’s alarm goes off too. It is currently not available for purchase, but she is trying to raise $20,000 to build a prototype.

As you can see, leaving babies in cars is a growing and serious issue.While some people do it on purpose, the majority of people do it by accident. Together, we all need to rally together and try to help prevent this from ever happening again.