re: ATL - Toddler Left in Car

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As for your example, sure I get it. I think most of us do that.

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I pose this question to a lot of people. I have not yet met anyone who hasn't experienced it.

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Far fewer will leave our kids in the car, and very few people experience this situation.

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At least eight circumstances have to come together for this tragedy to happen:

(1) The child has to be an infant or toddler. Older children can unbuckle themselves and get out of the car.

(2) The driver has to be without their spouse but with their young child. Many times, both spouses travel with their child. If the driver is with a spouse, this tragedy doesn't happen.

(3) The child has to be alone in the back seat without any siblings or other children. Many times, a child in a baby seat will travel with an older sibling in the backseat.

(4) The destination of the driver has to be different from the destination of the child. Many times, the parent is going to the same place as the young child: grandma's house, the driver’s friend’s house, fast food, or the store and return home.

(5) The young child has to be silent for a sufficient period of time before the driver exits the car. These tragedies don't happen to a baby that makes an occasional noise. It's more likely to happen to a sleeping baby.

(6) It has to be hot enough for the interior of the car to reach lethal conditions. It doesn't happen at night, and as one of the article states, summer is the season when these deaths occur.

(7) The driver has to be away from the vehicle for a sufficient length of time for the vehicle to reach lethal conditions and for the child to die. Although it doesn't take long, most times, a trip inside the gas station or inside the store won't last long enough for the child to die.

(8) Autopilot engaged. For whatever reason, distraction, lack of sleep, routine tasks, change in routine, the higher parts of the brain are not focused on removing the child from the vehicle. It's like driving a car on your brain's autopilot while you're thinking about something else. You get to your destination, but the higher parts of your brain are not focused on operating the vehicle. Similarly, your brain is on autopilot while you exit the vehicle and go about your day until you realize too late. It’s not lack of care or concern for the child any more than one lacks care or concern for operating a vehicle that weighs several thousand pounds and capable of killing you and others. It’s just that the brain does not handle all input, functions, and operations in the highest parts of the brain. That, unfortunately, is humanity.

Two more things and then I will end this already lengthy post: (1) I too have taken trips in which I reach my destination with little or no memory of the details of actually driving to my destination, and (2) I thank God for circumstance #7.

A substantial proportion of the public reacts not merely with anger, but with frothing vitriol.

Ed Hickling believes he knows why. Hickling is a clinical psychologist from Albany, N.Y., who has studied the effects of fatal auto accidents on the drivers who survive them. He says these people are often judged with disproportionate harshness by the public, even when it was clearly an accident, and even when it was indisputably not their fault.

Humans, Hickling said, have a fundamental need to create and maintain a narrative for their lives in which the universe is not implacable and heartless, that terrible things do not happen at random, and that catastrophe can be avoided if you are vigilant and responsible.

In hyperthermia cases, he believes, the parents are demonized for much the same reasons. “We are vulnerable, but we don’t want to be reminded of that. We want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we’ll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don’t want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters.”

I think what he is saying is fundamentally true, that people look for a sensible narrative or explanation for madness and tragedy. It makes you feel safe, as instability or the unknown is a great source of fear.

But here, I have trouble seeing the relevance. This was the guy's fault. If he does his job, the kid is alive. There is no mystery in this case. Catastrophe is avoided, in this case, if the guy is vigilant and responsible.

We can rely on statistics to exhibit that this is rare, and that most parents avoid this. But we're dealing with human being failures here, not weather or equipment failure. Maybe it comes out this guy had low blood pressure and was in a state of fog at the time, but I doubt it. He just forgot. If he followed the rules here, things would be ok. He didn't.

That isn't to say we're always going to follow the rules or that we're not going to make costly mistakes, but he's conflating the reactions, I think.

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I have sympathy, but only for the child and the wife. You have one fricking job as a parent. Protect your family.

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This.

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I take my son to daycare five days a week. We do this weird thing on the way called talking.

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I'm pretty sure in almost all of these cases, the parent who leaves the child is not the primary transporter of the kid to daycare.

He could never go all day without his phone if he forgot it somewhere. I can't imagine how this happen's, my infant child crosses my mind every twenty minutes or so. It's straight neglect nothing more nothing less.

What a tragic death for that poor angel to be strapped in and die that way ...sickening

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He could never go all day about his phone if he forgot it somewhere. I can't imagine how this happen's my infant child crosses my mind every twenty minutes or so.

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That's not the issue. If he knew he left his phone at home, he would know where it is.

The issue is that he truly thought his son was either brought to daycare by him or someone else.

Heck, he got in the car and drove home 2 miles before he realized. Likely when he spoke to his wife and she asked if he had picked him up yet.

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Moreover, if the purpose of criminal penalties is to punish the wrongdoer and/or deter potential wrongdoers, I can't see how the potential for prison will punish the wrongdoer or potential wrongdoers any more than the death of their child.

Coming back full circle, if I was the prosecutor, I would thoroughly investigate the circumstances, and unless I believed it was gross negligence (e.g., drugs or alcohol involved) or worse, I would not file charges.

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It's tough. I mentioned earlier in this thread I would charge him but that I think a court should show him leniency assuming nothing else comes out. But asking a prosecutor not to charge for what is probably pretty clearly criminal negligence is tough.

Not every parent will be self-punishing like this, sadly. I'm not sure what the best answer is.

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I love all the super parents that come out when this topic comes up.

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I love the assumption that it requires a "super parent" to not potentially leave their own child in a car to roast.

It doesn't. It really, really does not require anything other than simply paying attention.

Now...if in 2014 paying as much attention to one's offspring as we do to our cell phones and our busy days requires some kind of super power, than hand me a cape...because apparently I have that special skill. It never felt all that special to me, but I'm willing to admit that given just ow badly some here want to excuse this behavior I may very well be the outlier.