EDITIORIAL: Hot weather, parked auto dangerous combination for children

With temperatures already nudging the mid-90s, summer’s here in every way except on the calendar, which still stubbornly requires a solstice to arrive. This type of sweltering heat isn’t new or unexpected, but it still can be a shock to the system when it begins its oppressive lock-hold that can go until Halloween.

It also can be dangerous. It’s a time to take some commonsense approaches, especially when you’re away from air conditioning and shade.

One place that can be especially dangerous is the inside of an automobile. That is particularly true for youngsters.

Already this year, 10 children in the United States have died from heatstroke inside vehicles, a 250 percent increase over the four who died during the same period in 2015, according to KidsAndCars.org, a nonprofit child safety organization.

A Stanford University study in 2005 found that, regardless of ambient temperature, the inside of an auto will heat up an average of 40 degrees within an hour, reaching 80 percent of that heat rise within the first half-hour. The study by two doctors in emergency medicine and a meteorologist examined the temperature changes on sunny days when the outside temperature ranged from 70 to 96 degrees.

That means that even on a relatively cool day, the inside of a vehicle can reach 110 degrees, while on an already hot day, it can surpass 135 degrees. As with a greenhouse, sunlight enters through the windows of a vehicle and heats the air trapped in the vehicle.

As a result, kids playing in a car or a child forgotten in a car can be a tragedy, one that is avoidable.

While there is a move to persuade car and truck manufacturers to take technological measures that would lessen the chances for a child to be inadvertently left in a dangerously hot vehicle, that would do nothing for the millions of vehicles in driveways and parking lots today.

By the way, the belief that “cracking open” a window or leaving the air conditioning running in a parked car will alleviate the problem is ill-founded. The Stanford study found that a cracked window had no significant effects, neither on the rate at which the inside of the car heated nor the end temperature spike. Running the A/C in the parked car only served to slow the heat spike by about five minutes. It’s not safe to leave someone in a parked car, even if you’re “just running in” to a store or your home.

It’s incumbent upon adults to make sure that the child or children in their care are kept safe. That’s why we want to remind parents and others that the last thing you should do before you get out of a vehicle is to check it to make sure you haven’t forgotten a little one who is dependent upon you for his or her well-being. It also bears mentioning that this also applies to pets in vehicles.

The folks with KidsAndCars go even further. They’re urging those who see a child — and we’d add elderly adults and pets, too — in a hot parked car to take action.

“We encourage individuals in all communities to take action if you see a child alone in a vehicle. Try to find the driver of the vehicle, call 911 and if the child seems to be in imminent danger, break the window furthest away from the child to rescue them,” said Amber Andreasen, director of KidsAndCars.org.

There have already been 10 tragedies in 2016. We should do all we can to ensure that No. 11 doesn’t happen.

— The Albany Herald Editorial Board