Waze's New Safety Feature Reminds Drivers Not To Forget Their Child In the Car (go.com) 76
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ABC News: The navigation app Waze has released a new safety feature that reminds users not to forget their child, pet or other loved ones in the car before getting out. The feature, called "Child reminder," was made available to the public on Thursday, when Waze released its latest update on app stores for Android and iOS. The new feature comes amid concerns over recent child hot car deaths. Since 1998, there have been 37 child heatstroke fatalities on average per year in the U.S., according to the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San Jose State University in California. Waze's Head of Brand, Julie Mossler said in a statement: "Just as drivers sometimes forget to turn off their headlights, they sometimes forget things in the car too. This new feature helps keep people present in the vehicle and gives them an important, possibly life-saving reminder, that drivers sometimes need." The "Child reminder" feature is opt-in and can be turned on and off in the app's "general settings." Mossler also said that drivers can customize the alert "to include their child's name or pet's name -- anything that will get their attention at the end of a drive." It will only disappear if a driver has entered a destination in Waze and has arrived at that destination.
I dont want to live in this world anymore... (Score:3, Funny)
I dont want to live in this world anymore...
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there's an app for that.
Really??? (Score:1)
Re:Really??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes really. Ignore the ignorant judgemental AC.
Plenty of good articles have been written on this awful subject. I doubt any of us here can do better.
But start with Gene Weingarten's Pulitzer-Winning Feature, 'Fatal Distraction' from 2009:
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Two decades ago, this was relatively rare. But in the early 1990s, car-safety experts declared that passenger-side front airbags could kill children, and they recommended that child seats be moved to the back of the car; then, for even more safety for the very young, that the baby seats be pivoted to face the rear. If few foresaw the tragic consequence of the lessened visibility of the child . . . well, who can blame them? What kind of person forgets a baby?
The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist....
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just like the Nobel Prizes.
Excuse me! That would be just the Nobel Peace and Literature prizes. The real Nobel prizes are awarded for science, not politics.
Of course the science prizes are outdated. e.g. the era of individuals making breakthroughs in physics has gone.
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Excuse me! That would be just the Nobel Peace and Literature prizes. The real Nobel prizes are awarded for science, not politics.
I love it how folks around here love to create their own "perfect" definition of what constitutes a "real" Nobel prize.
The "economics prize" is obviously out (for many folks here) -- since Mr. Nobel didn't create one, so obviously even if it's awarded by the same methods and the same body, it can't be a "real" Nobel. (Personally, I'm pretty skeptical of those folks claiming to have "real" "Harvard" degrees from the "Harvard medical school" -- John Harvard gave money to what was effectively a divinity sch
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Yeah. Sorry I forgot to put quotes around "real" . Would that have conveyed an appropriate tone better?
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just like the Nobel Prizes.
Excuse me! That would be just the Nobel Peace and Literature prizes. The real Nobel prizes are awarded for science, not politics.
Of course the science prizes are outdated. e.g. the era of individuals making breakthroughs in physics has gone.
Yeah the Nobel Prize('s) in the sciences go to the tenured professor that signed his name on the bottom of the paper researched and written by his undergraduates that only let him so they can get their results published in a journal that would otherwise ignore them.
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Got evidence, or repeating a meme?
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That is a very interesting reference!
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But start with Gene Weingarten's Pulitzer-Winning Feature, 'Fatal Distraction' from 2009:
I absolutely second this -- one of the most important articles I've ever read. I still remember when I happened upon it a few years back after reading a bunch of judgmental articles about such deaths.
For people who think, "Who the heck could ever leave their kid in a hot car... what kind of parent could they possibly be???" You NEED to read this article. This could happen to many more caring parents than we might realize, given the right set of unusual circumstances. If you have kids or ever plan to h
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If you leave your kid in the car, you are drug-addled as far as I can tell. I don't care if it's legal SSRIs or legal meth (Adderol) or something else. Give them all postpartum Darwin awards.
Well, since it's clear you didn't take my advice to read the link, I sincerely hope you never have kids... or if you do, I wish them luck in avoiding this situation, which (again) can and has happened to all sorts of parents, including the most meticulous ones on the planet. The answer is some combination of awareness of situations where this sort of thing does happen to meticulous parents as well as additional safety features, but simply denying this could happen isn't going to prevent it from happening t
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If you leave your kid in the car, you are drug-addled as far as I can tell.
Nonsense. Plenty of people (including me) are just naturally absent minded. I never left my kid in the car, but I could have easily done so. To ensure that didn't happen, I took counter measures. When I buckled my kid into her carseat, I would put my cellphone, wallet, notebook, etc. on the floor in the backseat. When I reached my destination, I would get out of the car, walk a few meters, and reach for my phone to check the time, and suddenly be reminded that my daughter was asleep in her carseat. Yo
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Hell, think about less dangerous episodes of forgetfuln
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For people who think, "Who the heck could ever leave their kid in a hot car... what kind of parent could they possibly be???" You NEED to read this article. This could happen to many more caring parents than we might realize, given the right set of unusual circumstances.
I did it once. My son didn't die because I remembered quickly. I had also locked my keys inside, so there ensued a few frantic minutes while I broke into my car (with the help of a nearby police officer). It's terrifyingly easy to do when something breaks your routine.
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So what? Pretty much every stupid way to die has be done by people in all sorts of catagories. Do we need a voice message on the cubard telling us not to eat that donut because it contributes to heart disease? Waaay more people die due to that then the 15 - 25 (according to your linked to article) kids who die due to being left in the car. In fact, there are thousands of things in this country that kill people of even just children at higher rates than this. Maybe we just need to mount speakers everywhere t
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Yes really. Ignore the ignorant judgemental AC.
Plenty of good articles have been written on this awful subject. I doubt any of us here can do better.
But start with Gene Weingarten's Pulitzer-Winning Feature, 'Fatal Distraction' from 2009:
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Two decades ago, this was relatively rare. But in the early 1990s, car-safety experts declared that passenger-side front airbags could kill children, and they recommended that child seats be moved to the back of the car; then, for even more safety for the very young, that the baby seats be pivoted to face the rear. If few foresaw the tragic consequence of the lessened visibility of the child . . . well, who can blame them? What kind of person forgets a baby?
The wealthy do, it turns out. And the poor, and the middle class. Parents of all ages and ethnicities do it. Mothers are just as likely to do it as fathers. It happens to the chronically absent-minded and to the fanatically organized, to the college-educated and to the marginally literate. In the last 10 years, it has happened to a dentist. A postal clerk. A social worker. A police officer. An accountant. A soldier. A paralegal. An electrician. A Protestant clergyman. A rabbinical student. A nurse. A construction worker. An assistant principal. It happened to a mental health counselor, a college professor and a pizza chef. It happened to a pediatrician. It happened to a rocket scientist....
So bad parents come from all walks of life. We already knew this.
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If you advocate for people being killed just because they have trouble dealing with a complex world, well, I do not believe in the death-penalty (does not work), but a permanent stay at a mental institution seems to be about right for you.
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I think society will eventually have to relearn the value of darwin-cullings.
Re:What I would do: (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the way to deal with things like this is pretty much established: You do checklists and you never, ever skip them. When they have become part of the routine, you can rule out basically all such accidents that can reasonably be predicted. Of course, this takes a high level of discipline and that is why this is enforced only in cases where a lot of damage could ensue, like pilots. It is basically impossible to explain the necessity to ordinary people (look at all the "could never happen to me" idiots here), because ordinary people do not understand the mechanisms and that it can happen to anybody. It can also not be imposed by force, because it is too intrusive for a free society to tolerate something like that.
But if you want to prevent this happening to you, run trough a checklist that has "child" as one of the things on it whenever you lock your car. I used something like this because I kept forgetting my wallet or my work keys at home. After a few weeks it becomes a reflex which costs you a totally irrelevant 2-3 seconds each time and then the risk is mitigated.
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This is how I keep track of my shit. I have a list I go through on the way out the door out of the car and when I get where I am going.
Wallet
Keys
Cellphone
Tablet
Headphones
Name Badge (when coming to / going from work)
Backpack
Jacket
When I and the wife have a spawn it will be on the list until it is old enough to open car doors on its own.
As for keeping pets in the vehicle only assholes bring their dog everywhere.
\beginRant
Having worked retail. The workers hate you if you bring your "precious" little shit facto
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Maybe Americans need to learn how to treat their dogs.
Here in Sweden, people take their dogs everywhere, even on the subway. Seldom if ever any problems.
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Actually, the way to deal with things like this is pretty much established: You do checklists and you never, ever skip them.
Checklists help, but many people are incapable of using them on regular basis. Period. Just like many people can't run marathon distances or lift 200kg weight.
The only real solution is some kind of warm body detector connected to car's alarm system. Doors locked + body insde = alarm, always.
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Well, a networked health-tracker on the kid would be a good idea, but it would need to come with a) immunity of the manufacturer from litigation when it fails as long as it was a reasonably reliable product (which will be hard to sell to a lot of people, but it is the reality in litigation-nation and technology cannot be perfect) and b) be provided for free. In Europe, this could for example be something the health insurance provides to parents as a loan until the kids are old enough to fend for themselves
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Well, yes and no. One problem with such a sensor is that if it fails (and technology does fail), the manufacturer would suffer huge losses. That is apparently a key reason why there are no such sensors these days. The litigation culture of the US has shot itself in the foot here massively. Hence it must be something that the parent does and that requires discipline.
Retrain yourself (Score:2)
Just like it's a Good Idea to check the back seat before you get into your car, it's a good idea to check the back before before you get out.
Oh, and maybe turn off the goddamned phone once in a while so you're less distracted.
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Turn off the phone that is running Waze and getting me to my destination?
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Actually, if you are actually running Waze or other navigation, the phone will already be alerting you that you missed the turn-off to day-care and are on auto-pilot to the office. That seems to be the most common way for babies to be forgotten. Stressing over work, your wife/husband asks you to drop the baby off at the last minute - its not part of your normal routine.
I can understand it. It happened near here 3 years ago: the dad went to pickup baby from daycare after work, was t
Re:Retrain yourself (Score:5, Funny)
turn off the goddamned phone once in a while
Might miss a Pokemon.
That's odd. It says that there's on in the back seat of my car.
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Yup. I'd wager it's about 50/50 between knowingly leaving the kid in there but intending to be back soon and leaving the kid there intending to kill it. The people who actually forget the kid is in the car when they themselves leave the car represent a rounding error.
Re:Retrain yourself (Score:4, Informative)
Yup. I'd wager it's about 50/50 between knowingly leaving the kid in there but intending to be back soon and leaving the kid there intending to kill it. The people who actually forget the kid is in the car when they themselves leave the car represent a rounding error.
If this were true, you'd expect statistics to be relatively constant over the past few decades. Instead, there was a sudden uptick in deaths per year beginning right when car seats were required (1998) to be placed in the back seat to avoid the required dual airbags now always present in cars. Analysis of stats suggests that the majority of these deaths are attributed to "accidents," and mostly by people who thought they already had dropped the kid off somewhere else (and thus didn't go check), rather than those "intending to be back soon."
Re:Retrain yourself (Score:4, Informative)
> I for one do not believe the parents involve in these children in hot cars incidents simply forgot they had their children with them while leaving the car.
I can attest that it's happened to me. Not on a blistering hot day, but on a cool one when I was quite tired and the child I was baby sitting for fell asleep. The child was comfortable and reasonably safe, but on a very hot day it could have been tragic. Small children also often nap on car rides, and many parents with small children are chronically sleep deprived. So accidents are unsurprising.
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Imagine the explaining you'd have to do if you forgot just one.
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It is called an "accident" and it can happen. Especially as many people are so much into sensory overload these days that they have trouble distinguishing "important" from "not important". Think people that manage to hurt themselves when walking/driving while focusing on their phones and the like.
It has nothing to do with "disgusting" or being an idiot. It is an effect of more and more people not having the mental equipment to deal competently with a complex world. Adding one more complexity (these "warning
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Well, maybe you should give others a good example and start with yourself?
Idiocracy Is Coming (Score:1)
"Please do not forget you baggage"... (Score:2)
Only it is meant metaphorically now. So this at least gave me a laugh.
Of course it is completely useless, as somebody distracted enough to to leave a small child in a car in hot weather will also ignore such a warning. Accidents do happen, and for some people attention to critical detail is something that has to be drilled into them as they are always distracted. Of course, such drills cannot be enforced without going full-authoritarian. Punishment after the fact is not going to help one bit either (but wil
Heat alarm on car seats (Score:2)
I'd like to see a high-heat alarm that's armed when the car sit buckles are fastened. Bonus if it can connect to the car's alarm.
Yes, yes it shouldn't be needed. It it may be help save a few lives if parents care to use it.
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Won't work. Newer cars have the LATCH system, in which case the seat belt isn't used when a child is secured in a car seat (not a booster). If the regular car seat is buckled in order to secure the infant seat, it's always buckled except on a rare day when you need to remove the seat (I only do this about 2 times a year) and would always trigger the alarm above the trigger temperature.
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Please do. We don't need your whining.
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What, you're still here?
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or maybe I'll make a social mobile flash gamification app for this.
I dont think you understand what those words mean, grandpa.
Anyway, you just use Google Now to do this. No social, no flash, no gamification, no buzzword bingo. http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how... [cnet.com]
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ALL modern app appers know that only Darwin-defeating apps can app apps! Only LUDDITES subject themselves to natural selection!
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There's a word for an organism that voluntarily "subjects itself" to natural selection.
That word is "cull".
Because natural selection, unlike ITGs, is actually tough. It does not give a fuck about your desire to feel superior. It does not give points for your delusions of infallibility. It does not play fair and it does not care if you do. It only cares about success.
If you pass up an easy way to assure success, natural selection will be completely happy to kill you.
You live in its world. It does not live in
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public policy is mostly about placating society's irrational fears, not going after the logical choice.
Your Left Shoe (Score:2)
Step 1, remove left shoe. You won't be using it because bimbo boxes are automatic
Step 2, put left shoe in back seat next to child
Done and done