POST IT ON YOUR FOREHEAD

I never found it plausible when, in a scary movie, some guy is hiding in the backseat of your car, and, as soon as you get in, he sits up and yells, “Drive!” First of all, when I unlock my car door, I usually toss my heavy purse into the backseat, which would elicit a loud  OW! And, if anyone is in the backseat of my car, I always know it, because, invariably, he puts his head in my mirror’s sight line.

I always know when kids are in my car, because one of them usually kicks the back of my seat, and the others are fighting to sit by the window. And, all children are programmed to say, “Are we there yet?”

Toddlers sit in elevated car seats, and even when babies are sleeping, you can smell them—a sweet  (or not so sweet) baby smell, and they cry, coo or babble. Also, babies travel with more paraphernalia than a movie star with an entourage.

I never needed a reminder when my son was in the car, because I enjoyed his company—even when he was a teenager and didn’t especially want to be seen with me. However, nowadays some people are so pre-occupied, when they are driving, that they can’t see, or hear, or remember that someone is in the car with them. However,  I’ll bet they would never leave their smart phone behind.

Consequently, by 2025 (if climate change hasn’t washed away, or melted, all of the cars on the road) new vehicles in the U.S. will come with electronic reminders that drivers should check their back seats, so they don’t leave anyone (including their own children), behind when they get on with their, “Oh, so busy day.”

I don’t know how people, who leave their children in cars, can find a 3-hour parking space available—anywhere in a busy city. And, I am sure that most of them would never get away with doing that to their dogs, because a lynch mob would be waiting for them when they got back.

So, auto makers are taking the responsibility, that parents should take, to remind them to care for their children. Only Tesla didn’t agree to install backseat reminders. I guess they figure that if you can afford a Tesla, you can afford to leave your kid home with a nanny.

The U.S. House of Representatives is considering a bill to pursue legislation that requires auto companies to take the steps, that parents won’t do, to protect children. That means that if something happens to a child, when left in a car,  the auto maker will be held accountable.

If I were an automaker, I’d put a loud speaker in every car, and if a person forgets  that a child is in the back seat, the speaker would yell, in many decibels, for the whole neighborhood to hear, “You freaking jackass. You forgot your child!”

That should do it!

Esther Blumenfeld