Ever since Tyler Cestia left his son Thomas in his truck on a hot June morning two years ago, he’s felt, he said, like a cork floating in the ocean.
On June 14, 2021, and Mr. Cestia for a stressful work audit when she forgot to drop Thomas off with the babysitter to her office in New Iberia, La.
At lunchtime, he drove to a restaurant with the auditor and then returned to his office.
That afternoon, it occurred to him that he did not remember seeing the nanny that morning. He ran to his truck where he found Thomas in his seat behind the driver’s seat. Thomas, who was 2 and a half years old, was pronounced dead at the scene.
“It was a complete shock,” said Mr. Cestia, 37, who lives in New Iberia with his wife, Pam, and their two other children. “It’s like a nightmare that isn’t real. I live in a temporary world that is not real. And once you get down to it, it’s a daily grind.
Mr. Cestia said he was able to cope with severe grief with the help of his religious faith and therapy. He also got the support of his wife.
“People think, ‘Oh, how does someone do that?’” Pam Cestia said. “You never forget your cellphone. You never forget it. But he is hyper-focused on something else. He’s not a bad parent. He is not a bad father.”
The result in other cases has been more dire. Marriages fall apart. The guardians were charged and faced jail time. In one case last year in Chesterfield, Va., a father who realized what he had done immediately went home and killed himself.
And the deaths keep coming. Just this week in Houston, a 3-month-old child died after he was left in a car, police said. About 40 children a year die from heatstroke in cars, either because they were left in the car or because they were trapped, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
That’s an average of one child who dies in a hot car every 10 days in the United States. Deaths are more frequent in the summer but occur in every month of the year.
Child safety advocates say new technology could help prevent these repeated tragedies. Cars with internal motion sensors, for example, can sound the horn and send alerts to the driver’s phone if they detect a child in the back seat after the car is turned off.
But automakers and regulators have not made the technology standard equipment in new vehicles, disappointing safety experts. According to Child and Vehicle Safety, a nonprofit group, 1,050 children have died in hot cars nationwide since 1990 and at least another 7,300 have survived with various injuries.
“It should be really embarrassing for the automakers and the government that this hasn’t been addressed,” said Janette E. Fennell, the founder and president of Kids and Car Safety. “When you have the technology to prevent these deaths, and it’s not expensive, what are we waiting for?”
Federal regulators said they are developing rules that would require new vehicles to have lights and chimes to remind drivers to check the back seat after they turn off a car, as required under $1 trillion infrastructure law signed by President Biden in 2021. But that requirement doesn’t go into effect until 2025.
Major automakers have too already committed to 2025 all new cars will include basic back-seat reminder systems. Last October, more than 150 models offered reminders, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which said in a statement that the industry is making “major progress” toward its goal of universal seatback reminders.
But higher-tech systems that use radar or ultrasonic sensors to detect a child in the back seat remain relatively rare.
“It’s a matter of cost and need,” said Emily A. Thomas, the auto safety manager at Consumer Reports, who takes the position that child-detection systems should be standard on new cars. “People don’t know that it’s what they need, so there’s not a huge demand for it and, unfortunately, the auto industry responds to what’s needed. So if it’s not needed, they won’t put it as standard equipment.
About half of all hot car deaths lead to criminal charges ranging from child endangerment to murder, according to Child and Car Safety. Many parents and guardians take plea deals to avoid jail time and because they don’t want to face a court battle after a child’s death, the group said.
The psychological underpinnings of the problem have been discussed for years, at least since 2009, when Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning article studying whether criminal charges are really appropriate for parents who accidentally kill their children by leaving them in cars.
David M. Diamond, a neuroscientist at the University of South Florida quoted in that story, has been patiently explaining the issue ever since, including for a documentary film, “Deadly Disruption,” released in 2021.
said Dr. Diamond said many of the deaths occur when parents are driving to work and go into “autopilot mode and lose awareness of the child in the back seat.”
During driving, the part of the brain that handles routine behaviors like commuting “fails and inhibits” the conscious memory system, which is responsible for reminding a parent to stop and drop off the child during the day. care, said Dr. Diamond. Stressed and sleep-deprived parents are particularly susceptible to this problem, he said.
“That’s why we need technology because, frankly, we’re so forgetful,” said Dr. Diamond in an interview. “I try to stress to people that it’s not neglect, it’s not bad parenting, it’s just part of being human.”
Warning lights and chimes installed in many newer vehicles advise drivers to check the back seat when the car is turned off. Those systems are usually triggered by a rear door being opened before or during travel, but they cannot actually detect if a child is in the car.
Ultrasonic sensor, found in some Kia and Hyundai vehicles, a child (or a pet) can be seen moving around in the back seat after a vehicle is locked and then honking and sending text messages to the driver. But ultrasonic sensors may not detect a child sleeping in a rear-facing car seat, Dr. Thomas.
Radar-based systems are said to be able to detect even the slightest movement such as the rising and falling of a child’s chest sleeping in a car seat. Even a car, the Genesis GV70featuring that technology.
In March, the Federal Communications Commission a certain frequency is approved for short-range radar, the automakers say make child detection radar deployment easier inside cars. Before that, companies had to seek waivers from the FCC
Although radar technology is not widely available, safety advocates say drivers can remind themselves to check the back seat by placing something valuable next to the child, such as a wallet , phone, wallet or even one of their shoes.
Cestias have their own system. Every 8:05 a.m. they text each other to make sure their 1½-year-old is dropped off at the nanny.
They also spoke strongly in favor of mandatory child detection technology in cars.
“This is my chance to be Thomas’ mother and protect him,” said Pam Cestia. “His story may help save someone else’s life.”
