Listener outrage over kids being left in cars

Yesterday we cited an interesting study that compared a two-year period in the early '90s to a two-year period from 2008 to 2010 regarding hot car deaths of young children. In the earlier period, there were 14 deaths. In the later period the hot car deaths increased almost tenfold.The laws were changed in the interim forcing children to be in the backseat away from airbags. The theory? Out of sight, sometimes out of mind. Because children are now, by law, in the back seat, and also by law, rear-facing, the theory is when a parent is off their normal routine it is easier to simply blank out and forget their kid.

For example, it is not your normal routine to drop the child off at daycare, and halfway there you fall prey to your monotonous morning routine and go into autopilot mode and just keep going straight to work as usual. Once there, the child is quiet, and because all visual cues are now out of sight, you forget.

Many parents called in who could understand while tragic, there is a possibility of this happening even just once to an otherwise responsible parent. Still others called in outraged saying there was never, ever any excuse and parents who could do such a thing were reckless morons and other politically incorrect words I won't publish here.

In the meantime, we received an email from one parent who's heart has broken for every child lost this way and she decided to do a little something about it. She started a reminder product, which can be found on her website, carseatangel.com. It might be worth a look.

For the many people who couldn't get on air in the amount of time allowed we offer this poll question.