the "baby on board" alarm

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The only engineer I know locally is a retired professor. Will contact him soon.

Here's what I thought of regarding an alarm to remind a driver that a child may have been left in a vehicle after the vehicle is turned off:

1) A pad with a weight sensor that fits under the child in the car seat itself that triggers an alarm when the car is turned off.

Problems: it has to communicate with the car. I suppose it could communicate with something plugged into the cigarette lighter, but our car doesn't have a cigarette lighter.

Another problem with this is powering the pad -- batteries? Do you have to change the batteries?

Another problem is having the thing go off continuously when a parent is merely waiting for another person in a parking lot (I do a lot of that).

The positive side to this idea is that any parent can put it into a car with a cigarette lighter, and it could be mass marketed anywhere. People without small children don't have to be bothered with it.

2) Weight sensors in the back seat that trigger an alarm when the car is turned off.

Problem: Calibration! Car seats and kids vary tremendously in weight.

3)Sensors wired to back-seat seat belts that indicate someone is still buckled up in the rear of the vehicle, where most children should be. (Anyone who forgets a kid riding in the front seat is too stupid to live and should be hanged on the spot. editorial comment, this subject bugs me)

Problem: won't be available except in new vehicles unless a way to retrofit this alarm can be found. Time consuming retrofit, maybe expensive too.

Another problem is that the only way to turn it off would be to unbuckle the seat belt, and most larger carseats are supposed to be permanently buckled -- but, hey, if you're having to unbuckle the carseat, maybe you'll see the kid. I suppose a button to turn it off could be located behind the child's carseat near the top, but adding a button adds another point of system failure.

Another problem would be having the parent remember to re-buckle the larger carseat every time -- a kid is statistically more likely to be killed by insecure seating than by being left in a car.

The plus side is that the technology already exists. Front seat passengers get an alarm if they are not buckled up -- but is the alarm triggered by a weight sensor instead of a buckle signal? A combination of the two?

Any further ideas would be of great help. Does anyone know HOW to get ideas turned into reality?

-- helen (this_a_real_address@yahoo.com), July 03, 2001

Answers

I'm not sure that this is a real problem that needs to be solved. I mean, really, I know some Mom just forgot about her kid in the car on a hot day and cooked the little darling -- but how often does this happen? And, how preventable is human stupidity?

That said, here's my solution to the problem. Keep in mind that a baby has it's own internal noise maker. Thus, all you need to do is tigger that internal noise maker and broadcast the sound. This is obviously easy to do -- any number of methods, including pepper spray, electro-shock, violent motion, etc., will work. Irrespective of what method is chosen -- pepper spray, electro-shock, whatever -- it would be triggered by a simple device which determines that there is: (1) no weight in the driver's seat, and (2) the driver side door has been closed. The technology for this was developed years ago (remember seatbelt interlocks?) The trigger device would be combined with a microphone/external speaker combo to broadcast the "baby alarm" outside the car.

Thus -- in just one potential application -- the following occurs. Driver gets out of the car and closes the door. Car automatically pepper sprays the back seat. If there is no baby on board, nothing happens. If there is a baby, it screams loudly, the scream is picked up by the internal mike, it is broadcast by the external speaker, and the negligent parent is alerted.

I am placing this idea in the public domain. Please feel free to develop it as you see fit, without worrying about patent or other claims.

-- E.H.Porter (just.wondering@about.it), July 03, 2001.


I love you, Porter.

-- helen (squ@wc.k), July 03, 2001.

I love you too, Helen.

-- E.H.Porter (just.wondering@about.it), July 03, 2001.

EH--

If you recall, the seatbelt interlock was a Federal mandated gizmo in the mid 70s. Detroit reluctantly complied. It cost them much money to engineer and manufacture this feature.

The public hated it. They disabled it. They screamed so loud that it was de-mandated.

After that, the Federals got smart and only mandated "passive" restaints.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), July 03, 2001.


Yes, Lars, I do recall -- and this has what to do with what?

-- E.H.Porter (just.wondering@about.it), July 03, 2001.


You said "remember seat belt interlocks". I was remembering.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), July 03, 2001.

How about this, Helen? Since most cars IMMEDIATELY start buzzing, beeping or chiming when you turn the engine off (if you have left the lights on or the keys in the ignition, how about a "seat-belt buckled" alarm that also begins sounding immediately?

Since a child will either be buckled in via a car seat or buckled in in his or her own right, the alarm would then continue to sound until the buckle was disconnected (and, obviously, someone would be taking the kid out of the seat then).

We could improve this alarm by adding another facet. Let's enable this alarm to recognize when the driver's side door opens and closes. If the still-buckled belt is not disconnected within two minutes, a burglar-type alarm (or maybe the car horn) begins sounding. I think something like this would be cheap to build or install, could probably be done with off-the-shelf parts, and might even be easy to retrofit. Car dealers might even be able to throw it into a potential sale in order to sweeten the pot. I imagine that safety-minded parents might go for something like that.

Sure, the belt-buckled alarm would sometimes be irritating, and the follow-on car horn alarm would upset others in the immediate area, but I bet the Engholms wish they had had such equipment in their car. If they had, little Clare might still be alive.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), July 04, 2001.


Why not just put one of those stupid Baby On Board signs that were popular a few years ago back on the rear window and have all of us who walk past a parked vehicle that is so marked peek inside? Maybe we should also institute a Pet On Board policy as well.

-- (baby@on.board), July 04, 2001.

I think the problem with such a device is that few women want to admit to themseves that they could actually forget their child was in the car.

Salesman: This car has the baby alarm option.

Woman: Oh, I don't need that, I would never leave my kids in the car.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), July 04, 2001.


I love you ADH. Ok, we have ideas. Does anyone here know how to make them work? I still like the idea of making it a portable, off-the-shelf gizmo that a parent can buy at a grocery store in the baby food aisle. That way people without babies don't have to mess with it.

Maybe it should be a proximity gizmo that a parent hangs on the car keys with the other half on the baby's shoelaces. The thing on the parent goes off when the distance from the baby's shoes reaches ten feet. Not practical.

Unk, I love you. No one ever thinks he or she might leave a kid in the car. It's almost always either someone who is experiencing a change in routine or someone with too many kids to keep up with.

Giving parents an alarm crutch might not be a good idea. I hate the thought of a child baking to death.

-- helen (l@bor.atory), July 04, 2001.



I love you, Helen. I love your kindness and compassion and open heart. But I don't want to see more parenting gadgets, I want to see more parenting. I want to see people having babies only if they are willing to put the time into raising them, willing to make those big changes in their lifestyle that say their kids come first.

These parents made some choices about their parenting: they decided to pay someone outside the family to be the parent, to be the one who spends the most time of the child's waking hours both teaching and learning from the child. All choices have consequences. They probably made $200,000 between them, but it seems they both wanted to stay on track with their careers, rather than have one parent home with the kids. They weren't a single mother who has to have day care so that her family can suvive. If they were not going to be there for their baby when she was at her most vulnerable age, just when were they intending to be there for her?

Every family makes different choices about how they raise their kids and make their family financial decisions. In our case, we made the commitment to always have one of us available to our kids. Always. In 13 years of parenting we had exactly 9 times when we paid someone to come in and look after our kids. It means that we know Salvation Army and yard sales rather than rooms full of furniture bought at retail. It means we're outgrowing this house that we're crammed into, but we don't quite have the escape velocity to get out yet. It is not always easy, but we knew that parenting is not about being easy. We knew that the years would fly, that they'd be grown impossibly fast, and that we needed to treasure this time together to the fullest.

I had some gadgets that told me when I'd been away from my baby for too many hours. They are called breasts. They let me know that my baby needed me. My baby was on my back, or in my arms, as much as possible, rather in one of these many gadgets we have that distance us from our babies. My babies slept with me, not alone. While I was nursing I would have been _biologically_ unable to leave them in a car, because the prolactin (often called the "mothering hormone") set up such an intense bonding with them.

Mainstream culture does not encourage attachment parenting. It is not a matter of liberal or conservative -- I'm friends with parents from all segments of the political spectrum that have made a committment to attachment parenting, a commitment to being there for their kids when they most need parents rather than paid caregivers. I'd like to hope this might serve as a wake-up call for more people to give thought to how they can best be there for their kids, but I suspect we'll just get more gadgets to be advertised in glossy parenting magazines. [sigh]

-- Firemouse (mom@home.withherkids), July 05, 2001.


Disagree, Unk,

Many mothers I know admit to {other mothers} the fear of leaving their kids in the car, or locking their kids in the car, etc. The effects of mind-numbing levels of exhaustion and distraction that sometimes happen are not lost on all of 'em.

This was an horrendous accident and the safety device ideas are intriguing - but please don't give me another gizmo that I'll might have to repair, or desire to disengage.

{Luv ya helen}

-- flora (***@__._), July 05, 2001.


I love you Flora and Firemouse.

We decided a long time ago that I would spend most of my time with the kids. I have to work, so I end up with weekend and night shifts. I'm a walking zombie from being awake for the kids in the day and up all night working, and yet I never left one in the car. I just have this rule that the kids get out of the car with me. They're all well-behaved, so it isn't a problem to take them with me.

All of the women I know must work to support their families. I think we still have a leftover notion that all women must be mothers in order to be fulfilled, and that isn't really true any more. We aren't telling potential mothers about the stress, the sleep deprivation, and the 24/7 responsibility...or maybe they don't believe it. I love my kids, but I tell them to do everything they really want to do before becoming parents. I make sure they know I won't raise their kids for them.

As for the alarm, the liability for having one NOT go off appropriately is probably the number one reason it isn't likely to be invented. Porter might shed more light on that subject. It seems ludicrous that there's a standard alarm if you leave your KEYS in the car but the kids are on their own.

-- helen (too@hot.already), July 05, 2001.


Unk, I hear where you're coming from. The baby alarm would have to be standard equipment in order to be useful. However, I don't think that Detroit would do that without a great big Federal invitation to, and that doesn't square with my politics.

Helen, I'm of the opinion that the alarm should be built in, and automatic. Something self-installed can too easily be self-defeated, or poorly installed, or broken and not noticed. I agree that the convenience of a simply-purchased alarm is attractive, but it runs up against Unk's objection. Many people wouldn't buy it for exactly the reason he cited.

Firemouse, I agree that more and better parenting is needed. But I think that relying exclusively on that is too big a chance to take. Overworked parents and single parents can too easily get distracted, exhausted, forgetful, etc. And I'm not going to condemn someone just because they had too many irons in the fire at once. Condemning someone because they fucked up and accidentally killed their child is counterproductive. There's got to be some way to get some good out of that kind of tragedy.

Make no mistake, it IS tragic when a child dies in this sort of accident. It just breaks my heart to think about it. But rather than applying tough love and saying "you have to keep your children foremost in your mind at all times, and if you don't, then you're a bad parent," I'd rather come up with some tools to HELP the overburdened parents keep flying right. I'm not in favor of entrusting kids to a nanny for most of their childhood, but at the same time, I'm not going to begrudge a woman like Kari Engholm a device that says "hey, moron, take your kid out of the fucking VAAAAAAAAAN!" Heck, if it makes anyone here feel better, put a loudspeaker in the van so that the forgetful parent can be publicly embarrassed. :)

At any rate, Firemouse, I hear your objection to parenting gadgets, but I respectfully disagree. Outside of medical authorities or the law enforcement and legal systems, I just don't think it is anyone's place to tell a parent how to raise or care for their children. You make your own choices, and you take your own chances. YMMV, though. :)

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), July 08, 2001.


Firemouse, re parenting gadgets: I said I would never put a child of mine on a leash. Then I had three toddlers at once. I had one in my arms and two hooked to my belt and walking. It was the only safe way to get us all through a parking lot.

-- helen (heel@the.kids), July 08, 2001.


LINK

-- (ding@ding.ding), July 09, 2001.

LINK with illustrations

-- (ding@ding.ding), July 09, 2001.

This is excellent news, Ding. However, you didn't comment. Any reason?

"We had a lot of concern that people would complain, but almost all the feedback so far has been positive," Ford safety chief Sue Cischke says. "I think because they know it's the right thing to do."

I would say so.

"Toyota will study GM's new system but has opted against Ford's reminder chimes. "We decided it was too intrusive," spokesman John Hanson says."

Too intrusive? WTF? The thing needs to scream bloody murder to anyone within earshot if you leave your kid in the car.

"Ford technology spokesman Said Deep concedes that "if the technology becomes a nuisance, it invites people to disable it."

Well, that's true as far as it goes. But if you're leaving kids or animals in your car, then YOU NEED this device. Build it so it's not easily defeated. If someone finds the alarm a nuisance, then I have to ask whether or not they also find their child or their pet a nuisance.

-- Already Done Happened (oh.yeah@it.did.com), July 09, 2001.


Thanks for the link, ding.

It isn't enough to have the vehicle honk its horn for attention. That sounds like a car alarm going off, and no one will go over and look. Most people ignore the car alarms of others, and most people probably stay away from an alarm going off to avoid being accused of setting it off.

It has to be a special signal. The thing has to say "someone has been left in this car". There could also be a matching alarm on the key ring of the driver that goes off ONLY when someone has been left in the car.

Hey, if that particular feature is engaged, make it unlock the doors and roll the windows down!

Being able to turn it off should be an option, but the system should default itself back on every time the car is restarted.

Who do I send these suggestions to?

-- helen (hope@hope.hope), July 09, 2001.


This is excellent news, Ding. However, you didn't comment. Any reason?

I didn't believe any comment was necessary.

-- (ding@ding.ding), July 09, 2001.


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