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Comment by encryptluks2 | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised smart cars haven't built in a feature yet to help prevent this.

Teslas do have a "dog mode". I don't think they should have a "child mode", as that would imply leaving your child alone in the care is fine.

Not sure how easy it is to detect if you leave a child alone in the care, and for how long. What if you just go get something from the trunk, or if you forgot something in your home?

I wonder how many people have used Tesla’s dog mode for their children.

I turned it on once for my teenage daughter in a parking lot on a warm day and she was mightily offended. Teslas now have "camp mode" which also keeps the AC on.

> What if you just go get something from the trunk, or if you forgot something in your home?

To prevent the death of a child it would be sufficient to prevent the car from getting too hot. If you have a reliable way to detect the presence of a living being in the car, the car could just decide to activate the AC once a temperature threshold is met.

Electric car, sure. Most cars need to be on for the AC to function, though.

Teslas also have "cabin overheat protection" which limits the cabin to a survivable temperature when parked (unless the battery is quite low). Still not something you want to subject a child to, but it probably saves some lives. I think this is only practical with electric cars.

I'd be in favor of automatically rolling down windows if interior temperature exceeds 35C. This could work on ICE cars too. I guess it could increase thefts on hot days, but thieves seem to have no trouble breaking windows anyway.

The "cabin overheat" is the thing I'm surprised hasn't become standard requirements, it can be as simple as rolling down the windows or as complex as a system of fans.

> I think this is only practical with electric cars.

All cars are electric cars if you put a solar panel on the roof!

I believe that Bentley had this as an option some years ago: The solar panel would power enough of the climate system so that when you returned to your car after a heavy shopping session on Rodeo Drive, it would be warm but not oppressive and would quickly reach your desired temperature when you restarted the engine and turned on the AC.

Of course, as a Bentley owner, you need never worry about leaving your child in the back seat. The nanny is back there and will handle everything.

Not sure what you mean by "smart cars" (Telsa, etc.?), but my 2021 Hyundai Palisade already has this feature. It can detect if someone is in a back seat and displays "check rear seats" on the instrument cluster when turning off the car if it thinks someone is back there (seems like it checks the weight on the seat).

They do, just not universally. The infrastructure bill included a section requiring them, so every new car will in a few years, along with systems to detect if you're impaired or drunk and refuse to allow operation if you are.

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/auto-industry-agr...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/12/us/hot-car-deaths-infrastruct...

My car has a feature that will alert you if you exit the car and there's a person in the back seat. Example of it here: https://youtu.be/utEzcyoTk_E I always thought it was such an improbable situation that it didn't warrant a feature but maybe if my lifestyle was more hectic or I got distracted somehow I could forget about my child asleep in the back.

Not so smart cars have this.

My 2 year old Hyundai Palisade has rear seat detection via ultrasonic sensors - and I believe newer ones are using radar.

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/guide-to-rear-sea...

My eyes initially skipped over the "Hyundai Palisade" part of your comment, so I assumed you were saying that your 2-year old in the back emits an ultrasonic scream when she is left in the car.

Which is probably accurate.

I drove a rental recently that had a “check back seat” message and a chime when you turned off the car and it detected something in the back seat. I seemed to quickly learn to ignore the chime as it becomes the noise the car makes every time you turn it off. I would be surprised if they had any effect.

It's sadly not very marketable as it happens roughly 15-20 times a year in the US and everyone thinks it won't happen to them. When it was designed as a third party product it was a car-seat based weight detector rather than something that was a direct extension of the car.

I think a little indicator on your car with lights for each seat that is occupied where occupied is done by weight and is able to ignore the weight of a car seat might be a useful portion of an electronic dashboard. Still dashboard real estate is scarce and I'm not sure what indicator we'd be willing to remove to have it. On the whole it still doesn't surprise me that car manufacturers haven't done it.

They do!

My car has a "rear occupant alert" system. The problem seems to be that it struggles to differentiate between junk in the trunk and a living thing. Unfortunately, that makes it relatively useless since it's almost always beeping at us.

My car (2020 Ford Explorer) will notify me if there's anyone in the back seats when I open the driver's door. It also constantly bings if anyone's seatbelt is unbuckled, not just the driver and passenger.

My Bolt has a rear seat reminder setting - it's literally a chime + console message to check the back seat after you turn off the car. Not very smart, but it's there.

Seems like an opportunity for a carseat product that sends your phone a push notification when you get out of range if it detects a child in the carseat.

My car comes with a "check rear seat" configuration that flashes on the dash before the ignition is powered off.

rear occupant alert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8kfHgAr4-8

Prior automotive safety features came up because so many were dying. It's pretty sad that we need more of these incidents before we can develop a technology to prevent it.

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