Don't leave your children in the car!!!

To everyone who leaves there kids in the car while they run into the shop, pub, casino or whatever the place may be DONT.

On a hot day it only takes a few minutes for a child the start getting heat related illnesses when locked in a car. I'm a fire fighter and I'm sick to death of breaking into cars to rescue little kids while there parents play the pokies at the local pub or do their shopping. We no longer pop the locks, it is now the policy of my station that the window will be smashed immediately upon arrival.

We are also starting to see a new problem. These newer cars with central locking and automatic locking are causing kids to lock themselves in the car while there parents are loading the shopping in, the keys are in the front, the kids in the back and the back locks will not open by hand, this is ok unless you have a cargo barrier between the front and the back then the kid can't reach the only lock that will operate, the one on the drivers door and they also can't reach the keys. So never leave your keys in the car if your kid is sitting in the back and you have a cargo barrier between the front and the back seats.

Please, think before you act, it's only a matter of time before one of these kids ends up dead. (I know kids have died, I've just been lucky so far not have had it happen at my station and I hope we never do.) We are now getting calls like this at least 4 or 5 times a week.

Sorry if this is not the right place for this thread, it didn't really fit anywhere else.

I agree -- and I see it all the time.

First of all, leaving one's keys in the car at any time is stupid, but doing it with a kid in the car is idiotic. I live in Oakland, and there is almost always some scandalous opportunist waiting around to grab the smallest chance of taking something not belonging to them. Leaving keys and kids in the car is an invitation to grand theft auto and kidnapping, as well.

There have been a couple of stories in the news here in the past few years of children dying in the car. One was an 8 week old baby. The grandmother had taken over its care because its mother was unfit. She drove to work and the baby was sleeping so she "forgot" it was in the backseat and didn't drop it off at daycare. When she came out of work that evening, the baby was dead.

In another case, some dad "ran in" to his brother in law's house, leaving the toddler in the car, and ended up watching something on TV for a couple of hours.

It really pisses me off, the little ones don't deserve to die this way.

It is very common here in the desert Southwest for a number of kids to die every year from being left/locked in the car.

Usually the parents are either drunk or otherwise incapacitated, distracted by the gaming thrill at a casino, as you mentioned SG.

Even a little ventilation with the window cracked a couple of inches would have saved the kids life.

How people can be so thoughtless about innocent lives is a mystery to me.

They put their kids in a car seat to keep them safe in the event of an accident, but seem clueless about heat and suffocation.

i agree with all you guys! i wonder if we need a safty manual for the car buyers... i think the parent here is thinking better leave them in a place i know where they are better than a big place where they can run around and get lost...
good thread * and flagged

There is another way to get into a car with airbags and central locking I have been told - i wont post it but it would be even more expensive for the owner of the vehicle than replacing a window - and probably quite amusing for the child (providing the child is not in any immediate danger of course).

Never seen an air bag go off - bet it's impressive.

reply to post by codex code


It's just sheer laziness and irresponsibility.

Kids can be a PITA in a public place, for one thing, so instead of dealing with them while in, say, the bank, less responsible parents will leave them in the car. It's one thing to do if the kids are in the car with another adult, who can open windows and cool them down, and quite another to leave them on their own.

My ex leaves our kids in his truck in the driveway when he goes in to open the door. If he didn't live in such a high-crime, dangerous area, it might not be so bad, but I really worry that one of the local thugs will hurt one of the kids at some point, just because they're sitting out there.

I remember hearing about this quite a lot.

What's scary is that this has happened to me before. I remember when I was a toddler, I had fallen asleep in the car. My mom didn't want to wake me, so she left me in the car for some time. I remember waking up feeling like I was in an oven, screaming because it was pitch black and I didn't know how to open the door. I don't remember ever feeling so much panic in my life since that day. Luckily, my mom heard me screaming and took me out.

Here is an article about leaving children in cars and a story similar to mine (Kasey L. Westlake).

In 2001, 34 deaths in the USA. In 2002, 30 deaths.

i never leave my dogs in the car, let alone kids AND on hot days.

some people just dont deserve kids because they are incapable of thinking of anyones needs but their own.