We’ve all seen the horrific headlines each summer. So often the stories are the same, a parent who’s just trying to get through a busy day and instead accidentally experiences every parent’s worst nightmare. A million things on the to-do list, an awful oversight, and the baby gets left in the car. In the past 20 years, over 700 children have died in hot cars. In 2016 alone there have been 26 child hot car deaths in the U.S.
When these tragedies happen, there is never a shortage of accusations flung from the perfect parents of the internet, who insist anyone who could forget a child in a car is unfit for parenting. But the fact is, accidents happen. Fifty-four percent of hot car deaths are from children accidentally being forgotten in the car. Twenty-nine percent are from children who managed to get into an unattended vehicle. No matter the cause, it’s a terrible tragedy — and anything we can do to stop it should be embraced.
SCARY MOMMY now reports that the GPS navigation app Waze is trying to prevent these tragic statistics from growing. The app recently launched a beta feature called “child reminder”. This setting will send you a reminder when you arrive at your destination to make sure you check the backseat so you don’t leave a child in the car.
The new child reminder feature is only in beta testing, so it’s not available everywhere just yet. But you’ll be able to customize the notification, meaning you can set it to remind you to check the backseat for baby, or for anything else you need to remember to do once you arrive at your destination, like swap out your comfy flip flops for those office shoes. Read more at SCARY MOMMY.
{Matzav.com}
