Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 234 posts

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#181

Post by vacri »

dheera wrote: post #164
u801e wrote: post #146

Since 1998, the number of children who died of heatstroke in vehicles has been around 30 to 50 a year [1]. Before that, the number was a bit lower (10 or less) [1]. Around that time, the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) mandate on new vehicles having passenger side airbags as standard equipment came into effect. To address the issue of children dying due to airbag deployments (which were designe…

We have keyless entry, lane departure warning, cruise control, and even autopilot. Can't we have a stupidly simple system that if a human is detected in the car and the temperature is over 37 degrees C: - 0. Call the car owner's phone or alert them through any communication app they use - 1. After 5 minutes, call the police Ether or both would save lives. It doesn't seem like a very difficult technical task to me.

> Can't we have a stupidly simple system

No, because what you're describing isn't stupidly simple, but incredibly complex. Even just the 'call the police' bit - How? Which police? How do you communicate with them? What language do you use? How do you convey the problem? How do you detect and respond to emergency numbers that prefilter (where I am, call emergency and a human asks you for police/fire/ambulance, and then puts you through)? Do you use the standard voice channel, or an API? If API, whose API? What about areas that don't have an API (or much of a tech stack)? If voice, how do you make it not sound like a prank call? How do you provide extra data if the dispatcher needs more? Do you use a radio band instead? If so, which one? How do you ensure you're not spamming the channel? What if the police in the area don't work off GPS co-ordinates? I'm sure there are plenty more issues with just this part of the hypothetical system, but these are the ones off the top of my head.

Besides, while it sounds nasty, 30 deaths/year is but a drop in the bucket compared to other transport-related deaths. The amount of effort required to make a robust, reliable system to prevent those 30 deaths would be much more effective when applied to other transport problems resulting in death.

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#182

Post by badminton1 »

cokeeffekt wrote: post #143
badminton1 wrote: post #113

Leaving a child in a car is similar to allow children to drown in a swimming pool. They're seen differently but they are very similar in terms of negligence and consequences. In my opinion people doing this should be charged with child endangerment.

No this is different, not watching your kids in the swimming pool is a choice, you opened the gate to let them in and chose not to watch them.

[flagged]

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#183

Post by DanBC »

DanBC wrote: post #75
rayiner wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we're not talking about parents who are abusers, we're talking about parents who aren't that responsible.

Neglect is a form of abuse.

https://www.gov.uk/report-child-abuse

> What to report

> Child abuse includes physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and neglect. You can read more about the signs of child abuse.

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#184

Post by argon81 »

dheera wrote: post #164
u801e wrote: post #146

Since 1998, the number of children who died of heatstroke in vehicles has been around 30 to 50 a year [1]. Before that, the number was a bit lower (10 or less) [1]. Around that time, the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) mandate on new vehicles having passenger side airbags as standard equipment came into effect. To address the issue of children dying due to airbag deployments (which were designe…

We have keyless entry, lane departure warning, cruise control, and even autopilot. Can't we have a stupidly simple system that if a human is detected in the car and the temperature is over 37 degrees C: - 0. Call the car owner's phone or alert them through any communication app they use - 1. After 5 minutes, call the police Ether or both would save lives. It doesn't seem like a very difficult technical task to me.

Tesla (of course!) has done this http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/21/luxury/elon-musk-tesla-hot-c...

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#185

Post by dm319 »

lph wrote: post #136

Reading this article was heartbreaking. Becoming a parent changes you, or at least it changed me. I can no longer imagine harm to a child---as conjured in a written article, on a television show, or in a discussion---in an abstract way as I once could. It is now intensely emotional, as if it were happening to my own child in front of my eyes. This being HackerNews, I'm sure we're all thinking about fancy technologica…

> Becoming a parent changes you, or at least it changed me. I can no longer imagine harm to a child---as conjured in a written article, on a television show, or in a discussion---in an abstract way as I once could.

Same here. As a result I know I am missing out on the excellent GoT.

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#186

Post by cm2187 »

lend000 wrote: post #174
dheera wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have keyless entry, lane departure warning, cruise control, and even autopilot. Can't we have a stupidly simple system that if a human is detected in the car and the temperature is over 37 degrees C: - 0. Call the car owner's phone or alert them through any communication app they use - 1. After 5 minutes, call the police Ether or both would save lives. It doesn't seem like a very difficult technical task to me.

I wouldn't trivialize the reliable detection of people, especially small children. I think we are just now getting at the point where that technology could be reliable, and from an automaker's perspective, it could be a similar level of investment as autopilot, and a much smaller benefit (more people would be saved by reliable autopilot, and it's also much more desirable to consumers). Even if they had such a technol…

wouldn't a motion detector be enough? It doesn't really matter if it's a kid or a dog.

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#187

Post by ashark »

Angostura wrote: post #161
rayiner wrote: post #31

This is a great way to analyze the purposes of the criminal justice system. Typically, there are three: punishment, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Prosecuting someone who forgot their kid in the car can't have deterrent effect--to the extent the event was avoidable, the possibility of prosecution couldn't possibly match the deterrent effect created by the risk of harm to the child. Likewise, there is no rehabilitati…

It could plausibly have a deterrence effect if other parents have their memories jogged by seeing the coverage of the court cases.

Aside from one localish case that was maybe-murder (and that also dropped off the news way before it got as far as a court case, so I don't know how that actually turned out) the news is usually of the occurrence, not the charges—the potential of which may be mentioned in the story, but are never the focus.

I can reliably inform you that this coverage of the occurrences, but not the charges/convictions, is quite enough to give parents yet another thing to stress the hell out about against all statistical reason.

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#188

Post by michaelmrose »

dheera wrote: post #164
u801e wrote: post #146

Since 1998, the number of children who died of heatstroke in vehicles has been around 30 to 50 a year [1]. Before that, the number was a bit lower (10 or less) [1]. Around that time, the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) mandate on new vehicles having passenger side airbags as standard equipment came into effect. To address the issue of children dying due to airbag deployments (which were designe…

We have keyless entry, lane departure warning, cruise control, and even autopilot. Can't we have a stupidly simple system that if a human is detected in the car and the temperature is over 37 degrees C: - 0. Call the car owner's phone or alert them through any communication app they use - 1. After 5 minutes, call the police Ether or both would save lives. It doesn't seem like a very difficult technical task to me.

A car that calls the police on its owner seems like a non starter.

I would be worried that it would erroneously call the cops on me and not purchase it.

If you mandated it I would do my best to see the people that voted for it out of office as soon as possible.

What you are discussing seems complicated, error prone, and expensive. My kid is an adult. I don't want your half assed system calling the cops to save my packages that I'm carrying home.

What if people are transporting their animal in the car and the the line is long when they go inside to pay. Shall we call the cops on them after 5 minutes?

I am content and capable of reasoning about the real world and intelligently avoiding negative consequences by not doing stupid things.

I do not want to have to think about what conditions erroneous or real will cause my car to rat me out.

Not everything in life has a technical or legislative solution lots of things in life can only be avoided by rational people taking the time to do reasonable things every day like not leaving their babies in oven like cars and by and large do well at this. Out of 300 million Americans 30 manage to off their kids which is safer than bathtubs let alone the real risk of violent death in an accident.

If you imagine a unit cost of 500 usd and we have 263 million passenger vehicles outfitting them all would cost 130 billion usd to save 30 lives annually. If you imagine a time frame of 10 years you can imagine savings of 300 lives at a unit cost of 433 million per life saved.

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#189

Post by lucaspiller »

dheera wrote: post #164
u801e wrote: post #146

Since 1998, the number of children who died of heatstroke in vehicles has been around 30 to 50 a year [1]. Before that, the number was a bit lower (10 or less) [1]. Around that time, the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) mandate on new vehicles having passenger side airbags as standard equipment came into effect. To address the issue of children dying due to airbag deployments (which were designe…

We have keyless entry, lane departure warning, cruise control, and even autopilot. Can't we have a stupidly simple system that if a human is detected in the car and the temperature is over 37 degrees C: - 0. Call the car owner's phone or alert them through any communication app they use - 1. After 5 minutes, call the police Ether or both would save lives. It doesn't seem like a very difficult technical task to me.

I have a 3rd gen Toyota Prius which had the option of a 40W solar panel on the roof which runs a ventilator when it's parked. That and the white paint job really help it feel a lot cooler than previous cars I've owned, after leaving it parked for a few hours in the sun.

I'm not sure how much it would help here (no idea what the climate is like in this place), but I've sat inside when its 35c/95F outside, and it's just as comfortable as sitting under a tree - maybe more so as you can feel the wind.

It seems like such a simple feature (the solar system is completely isolated from the 12V and HV battery), I'm surprised more cars don't have it. Here is a picture - right is the (slightly opened) moon roof, and left is the solar panel: https://blogmedia.dealerfire.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/19...

Re: Forgetting a Child in a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime? (2009)

#190

Post by ashark »

lph wrote: post #136

Reading this article was heartbreaking. Becoming a parent changes you, or at least it changed me. I can no longer imagine harm to a child---as conjured in a written article, on a television show, or in a discussion---in an abstract way as I once could. It is now intensely emotional, as if it were happening to my own child in front of my eyes. This being HackerNews, I'm sure we're all thinking about fancy technologica…

> The memory expert interviewed in the article explains that this problem happens when the "low level" basal ganglia has the brain on autopilot, compensating for higher-level functionality that's compromised by stress, emotion, and distraction.

The thing I've noticed the times I've suffered through looking at more than the headlines of stories like these is that a combination of: (1) a break in routine (kid in car when they wouldn't ordinarily be) with (2) a totally routine 100% autopilot drive of the sort you sometimes realize you're near the end of and don't actually remember doing the earlier parts (morning commute, say) is deadly. It's so easy to see how it could happen. shivers

Post reply on HN