Heat Safety & Prep

42 Children Have Died in Hot Cars in 2018 – More Than the Average for an Entire Year

Vehicles are an extremely dangerous place to leave small children for any period of time on a hot day.
(iStockPhoto.com)

At a Glance

Hot car deaths have occurred at a higher-than-average rate this year.
Already, in 2018, at least 42 children have died after being left in dangerously hot vehicles.
Since 1998, an average of 37 hot car deaths have occurred each year.

With nearly four full months left in 2018, more than 40 children have already died in hot cars this year in the United States – a death toll that has already surpassed the 20-year average.

The tragedy of children dying after being locked in hot cars is tracked every year by the website NoHeatStroke.org, which has tallied 42 such deaths so far in 2018. It's a fraction of the 785 vehicular heat stroke deaths that have occurred in the U.S. since 1998, the website also said.

The 42 deaths this year are more than the combined number of fatalities from tornadoes, hurricanes and lightning strikes in the U.S. in 2018, NoHeatStroke.org founder Jan Null said in a tweet.

(MORE: The Most Extreme Summer Cities 2018)

Since 1998, this tragedy has happened an average of 37 times per year, and some have worked tirelessly to come up with ways to prevent it. Hyundai's newest Santa Fe model will come equipped with an alert that tells the driver if there's a passenger in the rear seat and the doors are locked, according to Consumer Reports. Car seats with apps that alert parents when they've left a child in the vehicle have been released to the open market.

But every year since 1998, at least two dozen children have died after being left in hot cars, and those tolls haven't trended downward. In a recent episode of The Weather Channel Podcast, University of Georgia doctorate student Castle Williams, who has studied these tragedies, said some backseat sensors are too sensitive, causing the driver to ignore them more and more over time, much the same way residents start to block out tornado sirens if they sound too often.

"Luckily, there are some other devices that stand alone that you can purchase that help remind that your child is in the back seat, but a lot of people ... were not interested in purchasing those because they felt like they would be too difficult to set up and handle," said Williams.

For those who seek a different, simpler option, Williams suggests putting a purse, wallet or cellphone in the back seat with the child to serve as a reminder to check the back seat after reaching the destination. He also says keeping a written reminder near the steering wheel, or even placing a teddy bear in the front seat, could be cheap and easy solutions.

Whatever it takes to keep dozens of children from dying trapped inside a sweltering vehicle every year.