Kids, Weather, Vehicles
Facts, Figures, & Other Info
Hot Car Death Map in 2014
In 2014, 30 Kids, 4 police K-9 Officers, and untold numbers of civilian pets died as a result of being left in a hot vehicle. While we were lucky enough to fall below the average of 37 (based on records going back to 1998), it was still 30 kids too many.. Each blue dot represents a confirmed hot car death, and each yellow dot represents deaths still under investigation but in all likeliehood will be determined to be hot car deaths as well. Does the map look how you expected? Obviously southern states have the majority but no state despite longitude and latitude are immune. Are you surprised to see hot car deaths in what you'd consider states too far north to be too hot to kill? As you can see it got hot enough even right on the U.S./Canadian Border. WHY is it you wonder are hot car deaths occuring so far north? Well.. because it doesn't have to even be that hot to create oven like temperatures inside a car.
How Hot, How Fast????
So after looking at the chart on the right.. are you suprised to learn that even when temperatures are as low as 75 degrees in as little as 10 minutes it can reach 100 degrees inside the car? As you make the realization that it doesn't even have to be very hot outside to make temperatures unbearable and dangerous on the inside of an automobile do you start to see the problem? How many times have you heard someone say... well I'd never hurt my child or dog, I only leave them for just a few minutes. A few minutes, 10 minutes to be precise is all it takes before temperatures inside a car are hot enough to kill. The smaller
child, the faster the heat kills.