Somewhat related to this is the problem of children being left in hot/cold cars accidentally.
When our son was very young (< 2 years old), my girlfriend/wife was usually the one to take him to daycare in the morning. Occasionally she would have to leave for work early or was running late and would ask me to take him instead. This seemed to me to be a perfect storm to have him left behind in the car when I went to work: not used to having him there, I might drive directly to work "on autopilot" and get out and leave him asleep in his car seat.
I often wondered if this was at the heart of kids being left in hot cars.
Anyway, I forced myself to get into the habit of always turning around and checking that the car seat was empty before getting out the car, every single time, just in case.
Of course, it never happened, but I can see how easy it is to forget stuff like this when you're simply not used to doing it.
That’s exactly why it happens so often. Most of us live (well, until recently lived) lives of quiet routine, and a quiet child in the back seat is surprisingly easy to overlook when that’s not your routine.
When our son was very young (< 2 years old), my girlfriend/wife was usually the one to take him to daycare in the morning. Occasionally she would have to leave for work early or was running late and would ask me to take him instead. This seemed to me to be a perfect storm to have him left behind in the car when I went to work: not used to having him there, I might drive directly to work "on autopilot" and get out and leave him asleep in his car seat.
I often wondered if this was at the heart of kids being left in hot cars.
Anyway, I forced myself to get into the habit of always turning around and checking that the car seat was empty before getting out the car, every single time, just in case.
Of course, it never happened, but I can see how easy it is to forget stuff like this when you're simply not used to doing it.