Prevalence of Child Deaths Due to Vehicular Heatstroke
Did You Know?
It is never okay to leave a child alone in or around a vehicle for any reason.
On average, 38 children die each year from heatstroke after being trapped inside a motor vehicle. Even the best-intended parents or caregivers can unknowingly/forget or intentionally leave a sleeping baby or a child in a vehicle and the end result can be injury or even death. It is never okay to leave a child alone in or around a vehicle for any reason. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has provided this quiz to test how much you know about preventing child heatstroke.
What are the Numbers?
Although there are limited data available for child hot vehicle deaths in other countries, KidsandCars.org has compiled a list of hot vehicle deaths in other countries noting that these numbers are severely undercounted.
An average of 38 children died from heatstroke fatalities in the U.S. per year from 1998-2020. In both 2018 and 2019, 53 children died of vehicular heatstroke — the most ever. In 2020, the total number of U.S. child vehicular heatstroke deaths decreased to 24.
Those children who died from vehicular heatstroke in the United States (1998-2020) have ranged in age from 5 days to 14 years. More than half of the deaths (54 percent) were children under the age of 2.
- For U.S. monthly statistics click here: Monthly Statistics
- For U.S. statistics by State click here: Statistics by State
- Trends & Patterns in Pediatric Vehicular Heatstroke(PDF)
Why Child Hot Vehicle Deaths Occur
A review of media reports regarding over 950 child hot vehicle deaths during a 31-year period, 1990 through 2020, identified four main circumstances regarding child vehicular heatstroke deaths. The highest incidence for these preventable tragedies were children that were “unknowingly left in the vehicle” or forgotten. Often with these instances, there has been a change in their normal routine. For example, if mom always takes the child to daycare but for some reason the father will take over this task for today, this is out of the father’s normal routine so he might easily forget that his child is in the backseat, especially if the child is sleeping or being quiet.
Another explanation is that the parent or guardian is distracted. There are several distractions that can occur in the vehicle: using an electronic device such as a cell phone, the radio, or even distraction by one’s own thoughts – there’s a big meeting at work today, or a deadline, or something else is occupying the parent or guardian’s attention. In these instances, parents or guardians have “unintentionally left” or forgotten, a child in the backseat. Out of sight, out of mind.
A less common but still just as dangerous scenario is when the child somehow finds their own way into the vehicle. Twenty-six percent of hot vehicle deaths occurred by children accessing the vehicle on their own and getting “stuck”. Often the vehicle is parked in the garage and the parent is somewhere else in the home and did not notice their child has wandered off into the vehicle.
The fourth most common occurrence for leaving kids in the vehicle is when the parent or guardian intentionally leaves the child in the vehicle because they did not realize the danger of doing so. Some parents still think it is ok for children to be left in a vehicle if they crack the window or if the temperature “isn’t that hot outside”. As a result, 14 percent of these deaths occur from parents knowingly leaving their child in the vehicle thinking their child will be okay. This action is not malicious as often they will crack the windows or think they’ll only “be a minute”.
The least common occurrence includes those adults who are found in in their vehicle in an unconscious state along with the child.
| Child hot Vehicle Deaths by Circumstance (1990-2020) | ||
| # Fatalities | Percentage | |
| Unknowingly Left in Vehicle (55%) | 543 | 55% |
| Gained Access to Vehicle on Own (26%) | 260 | 26% |
| Knowingly Left in Vehicle (14%) | 141 | 14% |
| Circumstances Unknown (3%) | 29 | 3% |
| 15 | 2% | |
| 988 | 100% | |
Source: KidsandCars.org
David Diamond, a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida, has worked closely with KidsAndCars.org. His expertise is cognitive neuroscience, including the neurobiology of catastrophic memory failures, such as when normal, loving and attentive parents forget their children in the vehicle. In Dr. Diamond’s publication in the journal Medicine, Science and the Law, he concluded that the reason is a failure of “prospective memory” which involves the intention to remember to complete tasks out of your ordinary routine. And then there’s a system called “habit memory,” which is akin to being on autopilot. Is is an activation of the brain habit memory system causing a parent to lose awareness of the child in the vehicle, thereby causing a failure of prospective memory. Diamond also wrote in his article Children Dying in Hot Cars: A Tragedy That Can Be Prevented how there is a clash between the prospective and habit memory systems which can lead to tragedy. According to Diamond, this is the same thing that happens when you are in a rush on the way to work and you put your coffee on top of the vehicle roof. It’s not always that benign, though. And there is precedent for Diamond’s conclusion. The failure of prospective memory has resulted in other scenarios- for example, plane crashes as a result of memory error or incidents of police officers forgetting their guns were loaded. A parent leaving a baby in a vehicle is not carelessness; it is a failure of the memory system.
Get the Facts!
- On average, 38 children die each year from heatstroke after being trapped inside a motor vehicle.
- Even the best-intended parents or caregivers can unknowingly/forget or intentionally leave a sleeping baby or a child in a vehicle and the end result can be injury or even death.
- It is never okay to leave a child alone in or around a vehicle for any reason.
- Children that have died from vehicular heatstroke in the U.S. from 1998-2020 have ranged in age from 5 days to 14 years.
- More than half of the deaths (54 percent) were children under the age of 2.
- From 1990 through 2020, there were 950 child hot vehicle deaths.
- A parent leaving a baby in a vehicle is not carelessness; it is a failure of the memory system.
- The highest incidence for these preventable tragedies (55 percent) were children that were “unknowingly left in the vehicle” or forgotten.
- “Forgetting a child in the vehicle is often due to a change in the parent or guardian’s routine or that the parent or guardian is distracted.
- A less common but still just as dangerous scenario is when the child somehow finds their own way into the vehicle. Twenty-six percent of these deaths occurred by children accessing the vehicle on their own and getting “stuck”.
- The fourth most common occurrence for leaving kids in the vehicle is when the parent or guardian intentionally leaves the child in the vehicle because they did not realize the danger of doing so.
- Some parents still think it is ok for children to be left in a vehicle if they crack the window or if the temperature “isn’t that hot outside”.
- Twenty-six percent of these child hot vehicle deaths occur from parents knowingly leaving their child in the vehicle thinking their child will be okay. This action is not malicious as often they will crack the windows or think they will only “be a minute”.