2019 has been another deadly summer for American children forgotten in the rear seats of cars by parents or other adults. The grownups lock the car, forgetting the child is inside and, in not much time, the child dies of heat stroke. Forty-one children have died so far this year, which is higher than the average of all previous years, 38.
While it's easy to second-guess the adults in these cases, especially if you've never made that mistake, the focus is, as it should be, on preventing more deaths.
This month, 20 major automakers representing 98 percent of cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the U.S. said they would equip virtually all of their new vehicles with rear-seat passenger detection systems by the model year 2025---five years from now.
Some automakers already are offering the systems in their vehicles. Hyundai says it will make them standard on most models by 2022---and Kia's new Telluride SUV has the alert system standard for its 2020 models, which are on sale now. Click here for a video showing how it works.