Public education is an effective vehicle for teaching parents and caregivers to “prevent tragic accidents and keep their children safe,” Mr. Excluding car crashes, heatstroke is the leading cause of vehicle-related deaths of children. Preventing child heat accidents is “an issue of national concern,” in this summer of record-breaking heat, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. “None of the three heatstroke devices tested was found to be completely reliable and consistent in their ability to detect children,” the report said. Three devices were chosen for intensive evaluation: the Suddenly Safe Pressure Pad, the ChildMinder Smart Clip System and the ChildMinder Smart Pad. None of the them addressed instances where children get into cars on their own.
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Others were difficult to install and required extensive maintenance. The research team found none of the devices worked consistently. Kristy Arbogast, engineering core director for the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the study’s principal investigator, said bioengineers considered how the effectiveness of the devices could be altered by a child’s posture, how much the child moves, liquid spills and electronic interference. Only 11 were commercially available at the time of the study.ĭr. Many of the 18 devices studied detect the presence of a child and sound an alarm when the child is left behind. “We don’t think they can be used as the only countermeasure to make sure that you don’t forget your child behind in a car.” “While these devices are very well intended and we do appreciate the manufacturers and inventors, we have found a number of limitations in these devices,” Mr. Strickland, administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, warning that too much reliance on technology could potentially contribute to a false sense of security.
“There should never be any notion of a single absolute perfect solution,” said David L. At least 527 children - more than half of them under 2 - have died in those circumstances since 1998, according to the report, which was done jointly by the Department of Transportation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. WASHINGTON - Technology aimed at preventing the deaths of children in hot vehicles is no substitute for careful caregiving, federal officials said Monday, describing some products being sold as “unreliable.”Ī study released on Monday examined products designed to stop children up to age 2 from being left in parked closed vehicles.