National Heatstroke Day: Why Awareness Saves Lives and How You Can Prevent Tragedy

National Heatstroke Prevention Day, observed every May 1, is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration‘s annual call to action against one of the most preventable tragedies on the road: children dying in hot cars. More than 1,070 American children have died of pediatric vehicular heatstroke since 1998, an average of about 37 every year, including 35 in 2025 alone according to the tracking project at noheatstroke.org.

Every one of these deaths was preventable, and nearly all fall into just three scenarios: a caregiver forgot the child, the child climbed into an unlocked car on their own, or a caregiver knowingly left the child behind. This guide explains what the day is for, how fast a parked car becomes deadly, why small children are so vulnerable to heat, and the exact steps that keep your child and your neighbor’s child safe.

The Key Facts at a Glance

• What: National Heatstroke Prevention Day is observed each year on May 1, kicking off the summer awareness season for hot car safety.
• Who runs it: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), with support from Safe Kids Worldwide, Kids and Car Safety, the Ad Council, and local coalitions across the country.
• The toll: More than 1,070 children have died of heatstroke in vehicles since 1998. On average, a child dies about every 10 days in the United States.
• The pattern: About 53 percent of deaths happen when a caregiver forgets the child, about 24 percent when a child gets into a car on their own, and about 22 percent when a caregiver knowingly leaves a child behind.
• The physics: A car’s interior can rise about 20 degrees Fahrenheit in 10 minutes, even on a mild day. Deaths have happened when it was only 57 degrees outside.
• The bottom line: There is no safe amount of time to leave a child alone in a car. Not one minute, not with the windows cracked, not in the shade.

What Is National Heatstroke Prevention Day

National Heatstroke Prevention Day is an annual awareness day marked by NHTSA every May 1. It serves as the official start of the hot car safety season, when rising temperatures make parked vehicles dangerous and the months with the highest child heatstroke deaths, May through September, are just beginning.

The day was created to cut through a stubborn problem: most of the public still believes hot car deaths happen only in extreme heat, only to other people’s children, and only when a caregiver is careless. The data tells a different story, and the day exists to make that story impossible to ignore.

Each year, NHTSA uses the day to launch or renew its national prevention campaigns. The agency’s best known effort is the “Where’s Baby? Look Before You Lock” campaign, a multi-million dollar national campaign that reminds every driver to check the back seat before locking the vehicle.

In recent years NHTSA has also promoted the simpler “Stop. Look. Lock.” message: once you park, stop, look through the vehicle, and lock it. More recently, NHTSA partnered with the Ad Council on a public service campaign built around the theme “Never Happens,” driving home the point that parents who say this could never happen to them are exactly the ones at risk.

The day is also amplified by partner organizations. Safe Kids Worldwide, the global nonprofit focused on preventing childhood injury, runs its own awareness push each year using its A.C.T. framework: Avoid leaving a child alone in a car, Create reminders, and Take action if you see a child alone in a vehicle. Kids and Car Safety (kidsandcars.org), the nonprofit founded by safety advocate Janette Fennell, tracks the deaths, pushes for stronger laws, and provides education materials.

The National Weather Service joins in with its own slogan, “Beat the Heat, Check the Backseat.” Hospitals, fire departments, police departments, and local Safe Kids coalitions hold car seat checks, press events, and social media drives around May 1.

The observance is national, but the lesson is personal. Awareness days only work when they change a habit, and in this case the habit is simple: look at the back seat every single time you leave your car.

How Many Children Die in Hot Cars Each Year

Pediatric vehicular heatstroke is the leading cause of non-crash, vehicle-related death for children 14 and younger in the United States. The most complete long-term count comes from noheatstroke.org, the data project run by certified consulting meteorologist Jan Null of the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science at San Jose State University. Null has tracked these deaths through media reports, court records, medical examiner offices, and law enforcement since 1998.

His running tally, updated September 28, 2026, stands at 1,070 children dead since 1998, an average of about 37 per year. Null himself notes that his numbers are conservative, because some cases never make the news.

NHTSA’s official count sometimes differs slightly, because the agency confirms cases through different channels and on a different timeline. NHTSA reported 31 children dead in 2025, while noheatstroke.org’s tally for the same year is 35.

The National Safety Council, using Null’s data, reported 34 deaths in 2025 and had logged 25 deaths in 2026 by late September. The exact figure moves around, but every credible source agrees on the shape of the problem: roughly three dozen children a year, every year, for nearly three decades.

The table below shows verified annual totals for recent years. Figures come from NHTSA, noheatstroke.org, and the National Safety Council.

A few patterns stand out in the data. Deaths are heavily concentrated in the warm months, with July historically the deadliest month. Every state except Alaska has recorded at least one child hot car death since 1998, so this is not only a southern problem.

Texas, Florida, and California have the highest total counts, largely because of population size, but per-capita analyses show that states like Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Arizona have some of the highest death rates per million children. One notable finding from Null’s research: deaths cluster on Thursdays and Fridays, the end of the workweek, when routine fatigue is highest.

That single detail says a lot about how these tragedies happen, and it leads directly to the next section.

Why a Parked Car Becomes Deadly So Fast

Most people underestimate how quickly a parked car heats up, because the car feels like shelter. It is the opposite. A vehicle acts like a greenhouse: sunlight passes through the windows as shortwave radiation and heats the dashboard, seats, and child seat, which then warm the trapped air. The windows, which let the sun in easily, do not let the heat back out easily. On a sunny day, a dark dashboard can reach 180 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

How fast the temperature rises

According to research compiled by Jan Null, the temperature inside a parked car climbs about 19 to 20 degrees in the first 10 minutes. About 80 percent of the total heat rise happens in the first 30 minutes, and interior temperatures can end up 40 to 50 degrees above the outside air, sometimes exceeding 150 degrees. The National Weather Service puts it simply: the inside of a vehicle can rise 20 degrees in as little as 10 minutes and 50 degrees in an hour.

The table below shows approximate interior temperatures in a parked car based on Null’s published research. These are averages for a car in the sun with windows closed; darker colors, direct sun, and larger windows push temperatures higher.

Read that table carefully, because it destroys the most common excuse. At just 70 degrees outside, a pleasant spring day, the car interior reaches 104 degrees in half an hour. Children have died when the outside temperature was only in the high 50s. Cracking the windows does very little to slow the process, and parking in the shade does not make the car safe either. Heatstroke deaths have happened in shaded vehicles and with windows cracked.

Why children’s bodies are far more vulnerable

Adults can tolerate heat that kills a small child, for several physiological reasons. A child’s body temperature rises three to five times faster than an adult’s. Young children have a larger body surface area relative to their weight, so they absorb heat faster, and they sweat less, so their main cooling system is weaker.

Infants and toddlers also cannot get themselves out, take off clothing, open a door, or tell anyone they are in trouble. A sleeping baby in a rear-facing car seat is silent and still, which is part of why forgetting is so common.

Heatstroke, also called hyperthermia, happens when the body cannot cool itself and its core temperature climbs to dangerous levels. When a child’s internal temperature reaches about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, major organs begin to shut down. At a core temperature of 107 degrees, cells are damaged and death can follow. The progression can be shockingly fast in a small body.

How heatstroke progresses in a child

Knowing the warning signs matters both for prevention and for emergencies. Heat illness in a child typically moves through these stages:

• Heat stress: The child becomes flushed, sweaty, and uncomfortable. They may cry, seem restless, or complain of thirst.
• Heat exhaustion: Heavy sweating gives way to weakness, dizziness, nausea or vomiting, headache, and cool, pale, clammy skin. The child may seem unusually tired or confused.
• Heatstroke: This is a medical emergency. Signs include a very high body temperature, hot skin that may be dry or damp, confusion, agitation, slurred speech, seizures, vomiting, rapid breathing, and loss of consciousness. At this stage the body’s cooling system has failed.

Heatstroke can kill. If a child shows signs of heatstroke, call 911 immediately, move the child to shade or air conditioning, remove excess clothing, and cool the skin with water while help is on the way. Do not give fluids to a child who is not fully alert, and do not wait to see if they improve on their own.

The Three Scenarios Behind Nearly Every Hot Car Death

An analysis of 1,041 pediatric vehicular heatstroke deaths from 1998 through 2025, compiled from media reports by noheatstroke.org, found that nearly every death falls into one of three circumstances. Understanding them matters, because each one needs a different prevention strategy.

Forgotten by a caregiver

This is the largest category, and the hardest for many people to accept. More than half of hot car deaths happen because a parent or caregiver simply forgot the child was in the back seat. Safety researchers sometimes call this “forgotten baby syndrome,” and brain science explains why it happens to loving, responsible parents.

Human memory has two relevant systems. One handles habits and routines, like driving to work. The other handles plans and intentions, like remembering that today, unlike most days, the baby is in the back seat because the usual drop-off plan changed. When the two conflict, the habit system usually wins, especially under stress, sleep deprivation, or distraction.

The parent drives the familiar route on autopilot and never forms the memory of the child being there. Rear-facing car seats make this worse: the child is behind the driver, out of sight, often silent when sleeping.

The single biggest risk factor is a change in routine. NHTSA has stressed this repeatedly.

When the parent who does not usually do daycare drop-off takes the morning shift, or when a grandparent or babysitter fills in, the autopilot route leads straight past the daycare and on to work. That is why Null’s data shows deaths clustering on Thursdays and Fridays: by the end of the workweek, parents are tired, routines blur, and the mental check that would have caught the error does not happen.

This is also why judgment helps no one. These cases involve parents from every walk of life, including teachers, doctors, nurses, and police officers. The correct response is not “I would never,” it is building a system that does not depend on memory alone.

A child gains access on their own

Nearly one in four deaths happens when a curious toddler gets into an unlocked car without any adult realizing it, then cannot get out. Children are drawn to cars as play spaces. Once inside, a small child often cannot open the door from the inside, especially with child safety locks engaged, and may panic instead of honking the horn or climbing out. Many of these deaths happen at home, in the family’s own driveway, on days when no trip was planned at all.

Prevention here is straightforward and has nothing to do with memory: always lock your vehicle, even in your own driveway or garage, and keep keys and remote fobs where children cannot reach them. Teach children that a car is not a playground, and if a child goes missing, check the car and trunk first, before checking anywhere else.

Knowingly left by a caregiver

About one in five deaths happens when an adult intentionally leaves a child in the car, usually to run a quick errand. The thinking is almost always the same: the child is sleeping, it will only take a minute, the windows are cracked. The temperature table above shows why this thinking is fatal.

In 10 minutes the car is 20 degrees hotter, and there is no errand so quick that a child’s safety is worth the gamble. Many of these caregivers had no idea how fast the danger builds. That ignorance is exactly what National Heatstroke Prevention Day exists to fix.

Myths vs. Facts About Hot Car Deaths

Misinformation keeps killing children. Here are the myths National Heatstroke Prevention Day campaigns spend the most time correcting.

How to Prevent Hot Car Deaths: The A.C.T. Plan

Safe Kids Worldwide teaches a three-step plan, promoted every National Heatstroke Prevention Day, that covers all three death scenarios. It is short enough to memorize and complete enough to work.

• A: Avoid. Never leave a child alone in a car, not even for a minute. Keep your vehicle locked at all times when you are not using it, so children cannot climb in on their own. Store keys and fobs out of children’s reach.
• C: Create reminders. Build memory backups into your routine. Put your phone, purse, briefcase, or work bag in the back seat next to the child, so you must open the back door at your destination. Keep a stuffed animal in the car seat when it is empty and move it to the front seat when the child is buckled in, as a visual cue. Set a daily phone alarm for daycare drop-off time. Ask your childcare provider to call you if your child does not arrive as expected.
• T: Take action. If you see a child alone in a car, call 911. Emergency responders would much rather answer a false alarm than recover a fatality. One call can save a life.

NHTSA’s guidance adds a few practical habits on top of this framework:

• Make it a habit to check the back seat, front and back, every time you leave the vehicle, even when you are sure no child is with you.
• When your routine changes, say it out loud: “Today I have the baby, daycare first.” Speaking the plan engages the part of memory that autopilot driving bypasses.
• If someone else is driving your child, confirm the drop-off happened. A quick text takes seconds.
• Teach children that vehicles are never play areas, and always check the car and trunk first if a child goes missing.
• Lock the car with the key rather than the remote if that forces you to walk around the vehicle, giving you one last look inside.

What to Do If You See a Child Alone in a Hot Car

Bystanders have saved children’s lives. National Heatstroke Prevention Day urges every adult to be ready to act. If you spot a child alone in a parked vehicle, especially on a warm day, treat it as an emergency and work through these steps in order:

1. Call 911 immediately. Do this first, before trying to find the driver. Give the dispatcher the exact location, the vehicle’s make, model, color, and license plate, and describe the child’s condition.
2. Assess the child. Is the child responsive? Are they sweating heavily, flushed, vomiting, or limp? A child in distress, unconscious, or not responding normally needs to come out of that car as fast as possible.
3. Try the doors. Check whether any door is unlocked before considering anything more drastic.
4. Follow the dispatcher’s instructions. The 911 dispatcher will tell you whether to wait for emergency services or to force entry. If the child is in clear distress and help is minutes away, dispatchers will commonly advise getting the child out.
5. If you must break a window, do it safely. Choose a window far from the child so glass does not shower onto them, and use the minimum force needed. The law on this varies by state, which is covered below.
6. Cool the child right away. Move the child to shade or air conditioning, remove excess clothing, and pour cool water over the skin. Do not give fluids to a child who is not fully alert.
7. Stay until help arrives. Remain with the child near the vehicle until emergency personnel take over, and be ready to tell them what you observed.

The single biggest mistake is hesitation: waiting to see if the parent comes back, or assuming someone else will call. Minutes are the difference between a scare and a funeral.

Good Samaritan laws: can you legally break a window

Many states have laws that protect bystanders who damage a vehicle to rescue a child in danger, but the details vary widely, so treat this as an overview rather than legal advice for your state.

• Arizona passed a law (ARS 12-558-02) that protects rescuers from civil lawsuits when they break into a vehicle to save a child or animal, provided they genuinely believe the occupant faces imminent danger, the vehicle is locked with no other way in, they call 911 first, use only necessary force, and stay until help arrives.
• Indiana’s law grants immunity to a person who rescues a child under 18 who cannot exit a vehicle on their own, as long as the car is locked, the rescuer believes the child faces serious harm, contacts law enforcement, uses no more force than necessary, and remains at the scene.
• South Carolina’s Good Samaritan statute shields people from civil liability for emergency aid given in good faith to a child or vulnerable adult in danger.
• Nevada protects law enforcement and emergency personnel who use reasonable means to remove a child from a vehicle, and its unattended-child statute carries civil liability protection for qualifying rescuers.
• Delaware shows the other side: its Good Samaritan law covers medical aid but does not explicitly authorize private citizens to damage property to reach someone in danger.

The practical takeaway, recommended by kidsandcars.org and NHTSA alike: always call 911 first and follow the dispatcher’s guidance. That call is both the fastest route to professional help and your strongest protection if you must act.

State Laws on Leaving Children Unattended in Vehicles

There is no single federal law against leaving a child alone in a car. Instead, a patchwork of state laws applies, and they differ in what ages are covered, how long is too long, and what the penalties are. Roughly two dozen to 30 states have statutes that specifically address leaving a child unattended in a vehicle, while in the remaining states prosecutors use general child endangerment, neglect, or reckless endangerment laws.

Where specific laws exist, they typically work like this:

• California’s Kaitlyn’s Law prohibits leaving a child age 6 or younger alone in a vehicle unless supervised by someone at least 12 years old. A first offense carries a fine, and the law is named for a child who died in a hot car.
• Nevada (NRS 202.485) makes it illegal to leave a child under 7 unattended in a vehicle under conditions that present a significant risk to health or safety, with no minimum number of minutes required. Officers focus on the danger, not the clock.
• Illinois, Texas, Florida, and others have their own versions, typically covering children under 6 or 7, with penalties ranging from fines of a few hundred dollars to misdemeanor or felony charges.
• When a child is harmed or dies, prosecutors in any state can and do file serious charges: child abuse, manslaughter, or even murder, depending on the circumstances and the caregiver’s state of mind.

Two warnings are worth hearing clearly. First, “I was only gone a minute” is not a defense anywhere; in most of these statutes, the test is the risk to the child, not the time on the clock. Second, laws punish after the fact. They do not prevent the death. Prevention comes from the habits in the A.C.T. plan, not from the statute book.

Technology That Helps, and Its Limits

Because memory is fallible, engineers have spent years building backup systems — a key theme of National Heatstroke Prevention Day. They help, but none of them replaces checking the back seat.

Rear seat reminders

General Motors introduced the first mainstream Rear Seat Reminder in 2016 on the 2017 GMC Acadia. The idea is simple: if a rear door was opened before the trip, the car chimes and shows a dashboard message at the end of the trip reminding the driver to check the rear seats. GM made it standard across its four-door lineup, and the feature is now standard equipment in more than 260 vehicles sold in the United States.

The limitation is important. These systems do not detect a child. They only infer that something might be in the back because a rear door opened earlier. A parent who opens the rear door every day to toss in a diaper bag will hear the chime every day and learn to dismiss it without looking. Safety advocates call this alert fatigue, and it is real.

Child presence detection

The next generation is child presence detection (CPD): sensors that directly detect a living occupant left in the cabin. Automakers are using interior radar, including millimeter-wave radar that can sense the tiny movements of a sleeping infant’s breathing, as well as ultrasonic and camera-based systems. If the car detects a child after lockup, it can escalate warnings: honking, flashing lights, phone alerts to the owner, even rolling down windows or activating ventilation as a last resort.

Europe is moving fastest on this front. Euro NCAP, the European car safety rating body, now awards safety points for child presence detection under its updated protocols, and models like the smart #5 earned top marks in 2025 partly for a radar-based system that alerts the driver or triggers countermeasures if a child or pet is left inside.

The overdue federal rule

In the United States, Congress has already told regulators to act, but the rule is late.

The Hot Cars Act (H.R. 3593), backed by Senators Richard Blumenthal and others, passed the full House in 2020 and would have required child detection technology in new vehicles.

Its core requirement then became Section 24222 of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Public Law 117-58), which directed the Department of Transportation to issue a final rule requiring new passenger vehicles to alert drivers to check the rear seat. The final rule was due in November 2023. As of the summer of 2026, it still had not been issued, and safety advocates demonstrated outside the Transportation Department, hanging more than a thousand onesies to represent the children lost, to demand action.

The auto industry, for its part, made a voluntary commitment in 2019 to install basic rear seat reminders, using simple door-logic alerts, across new vehicles. Advocates including Kids and Car Safety argue this is not enough, precisely because those alerts do not detect a child who climbed in on their own, which accounts for roughly a quarter of deaths.

Separately, NHTSA has finalized a rule requiring rear seat belt reminders under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208, with enhanced front warnings due September 2026 and rear warnings September 2027. That rule targets seat belt use in crashes, not hot car deaths, so do not confuse the two.

Aftermarket devices and apps

A small market of add-on products exists: pressure pads for car seats, Bluetooth tags that sound an alarm when the driver walks away with the phone, and reminder gadgets that plug into the car’s power outlet. These can be a useful extra layer, especially in older cars, rentals, and grandparents’ vehicles that lack built-in reminders. Treat them as supplements to the A.C.T. habits, not replacements. Reliability varies, batteries die, and a device you stop noticing is a device that is not protecting anyone.

Who Is Most at Risk

Any child left in a hot car is in danger, but the data shows clear risk patterns that parents and caregivers should know — and that National Heatstroke Prevention Day highlights each year.

• Infants and toddlers under age 2 make up the large majority of victims. They are almost always rear-facing, out of the driver’s sight, and unable to help themselves.
• Children of busy, sleep-deprived parents, which is to say nearly all parents. Fatigue and stress degrade the exact memory systems that forgetting exploits.
• Families with a recent routine change: a new job, a new daycare, a different parent doing drop-off, a grandparent visiting. Any break in the normal pattern raises the risk sharply.
• Children with access to unlocked cars at home. Toddlers aged 1 to 3 are the most likely to climb into a vehicle on their own, and child safety locks can trap them inside.
• Children in the care of someone unfamiliar with the routine, such as a new babysitter, a relative visiting for the weekend, or a parent driving a borrowed or rental car. Memory failures are more likely in unfamiliar vehicles.

If you recognize your family in any of these, that is not a reason for shame. It is a reason to put a reminder system in place today.

How to Observe National Heatstroke Prevention Day

May 1 is a day for action, not just awareness. Here are concrete ways parents, schools, employers, and community groups can take part:

• Share the message. Post the “Stop. Look. Lock.” reminder or the A.C.T. steps on social media with the day’s hashtags. One share can put the idea in front of an exhausted parent who needs it.
• Talk to your daycare. Confirm that your childcare provider calls when your child does not arrive as expected. If they do not have that policy, ask them to start it.
• Set your reminders now. Put a daily phone alarm labeled with your child’s name at drop-off time. Place your work bag in the back seat starting today, so the habit is built before summer.
• Lock your cars tonight. Walk out and check: are all vehicles in your driveway locked, with keys out of reach? Do it as a family so older kids learn the rule.
• Ask your employer. Many companies send a May 1 safety email or include hot car reminders in summer communications. If yours does not, suggest it.
• Host or attend an event. Local Safe Kids coalitions, fire departments, and hospitals often hold car seat checks and awareness events around May 1. A quick search for your county’s Safe Kids coalition will show what is happening near you.
• Learn the bystander steps. Save the “what to do” list from this article in your phone. The person who acts quickly is often a stranger in a parking lot.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is National Heatstroke Prevention Day?

National Heatstroke Prevention Day is observed every year on May 1. NHTSA marks the day to launch the summer awareness season for preventing child hot car deaths, since fatalities rise sharply from May through September.

How many children die in hot cars each year?

About 37 children die of pediatric vehicular heatstroke in the United States each year, based on tracking by noheatstroke.org at San Jose State University, which counted 1,070 deaths from 1998 through September 2026. NHTSA’s official count is similar, averaging about 38 per year, with 31 deaths in 2025 and 39 in 2024. Record years were 2018 and 2019, with 53 deaths each.

How fast does a car heat up with a child inside?

Very fast. A parked car’s interior rises about 20 degrees Fahrenheit in the first 10 minutes and can reach 40 to 50 degrees above the outside temperature within an hour. About 80 percent of the heat rise happens in the first 30 minutes. On an 80-degree day, the interior can pass 109 degrees in 20 minutes and 123 degrees in an hour.

Can a child die in a hot car on a mild day?

Yes. Children have died when the outside temperature was only 57 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. On a 70-degree day, a car’s interior can reach 104 degrees in 30 minutes, which is enough to start shutting down a small child’s organs. The outside temperature does not need to feel hot to you for the car to become lethal to a child.

Does cracking the windows or parking in the shade help?

Not meaningfully. NHTSA states that cracking windows does little to change the interior temperature, and heatstroke deaths have occurred in shaded vehicles and with windows cracked. Neither is a substitute for never leaving a child alone in a car.

Why do parents forget their children in cars?

Forgetting is a failure of prospective memory, not of love. Driving a familiar route runs on habit memory, which can override the plan to stop at daycare, especially when routines change, or when the parent is stressed, tired, or distracted. Rear-facing car seats keep the child out of sight, and a sleeping baby gives no reminder. The biggest risk factor is a change in routine, which is why deaths cluster at the end of the workweek.

What should I do if I see a child alone in a hot car?

Call 911 first and give the exact location and vehicle description. Try the doors. Follow the dispatcher’s instructions about whether to wait or force entry. If the child is in distress and you must break a window, choose one far from the child and use minimum force. Move the child to shade, remove extra clothing, cool the skin with water, and stay until emergency help arrives. Do not give fluids to a child who is not fully alert.

Is it legal to break a car window to rescue a child?

It depends on your state. Many states, including Arizona, Indiana, and South Carolina, have Good Samaritan provisions that protect bystanders who damage a vehicle to rescue a child in imminent danger, usually with conditions such as calling 911 first and using only necessary force. Other states do not explicitly authorize it. Because the law varies, the safest universal advice is to call 911 first and follow the dispatcher’s guidance.

Are rear seat reminder systems enough to prevent hot car deaths?

No. Most rear seat reminders do not detect a child; they only notice that a rear door opened before the trip and then chime at the end. They can be dismissed out of habit, and they do nothing for the roughly one quarter of deaths where a child climbs into a car on their own. True child presence detection, using radar or other sensors to sense an occupant directly, is newer and more effective, and Euro NCAP now rewards it in safety ratings. Technology is a backup, not a replacement, for checking the back seat.

What is the A.C.T. plan from Safe Kids Worldwide?

A.C.T. stands for Avoid, Create reminders, and Take action. Avoid leaving a child alone in a car even for a minute, and keep cars locked so children cannot get in. Create reminders such as putting your phone or bag in the back seat, moving a stuffed animal to the front seat as a cue, and asking your daycare to call if your child does not arrive. Take action by calling 911 if you see a child alone in a vehicle.

The Bottom Line

National Heatstroke Prevention Day exists because the math of this tragedy is both horrifying and hopeful. Horrifying, because more than a thousand children have died in hot cars since 1998, each death unfolding in minutes inside a vehicle their caregiver parked with no intention of harm.

Hopeful, because every single one of those deaths was preventable, and the prevention is not complicated: never leave a child alone in a car, lock your vehicle every time, build reminders into your routine, and call 911 the moment you see a child alone in a vehicle.

May 1 comes once a year, but the habit it asks for takes five seconds, every day. Stop. Look. Lock. Make it automatic, teach it to everyone who ever drives your child, and talk about it the way you would talk about buckling a seat belt, because it belongs in the same category: a small, non-negotiable act that keeps a child alive.

For more guidance on keeping children safe in and around vehicles, explore the resources here at CarSeatHaven, and share this article with a parent who needs to read it before summer.

Aiden

Aiden is the founder and editor of CarSeatHaven. He researches NHTSA safety standards, AAP guidance, manufacturer manuals, and recall notices, and turns them into plain-language car seat guides for parents.