PHOENIX — As schedules change during the summer months, the risk of accidentally leaving a child behind in a hot car gets greater. But advocates say a deadline is looming for potential life-saving technology.
Angela Jones lost her 3-year-old daughter Charly, after she says her husband accidentally left her in the backseat of his pickup truck in 2019.
The family had a vacation coming up, so the choice was made to leave Charly home from preschool, which was outside of their normal routine.
"She's only going to go one day, let's not have to pay for the whole week," Jones recalls.
She says her husband still loaded up the car with Charly and their two other girls, dropped their older ones off at school then came back to the house to work. Jones says it wasn't until she called her husband to check on Charly, that panic set in.
"He knew right away in his mind to run out to the truck... she was in the backseat not responsive," Jones said. "It's hard because it could've been prevented."
That year, three other Valley children died after accidentally being left in cars. Data from the organization Kids and Car Safety shows Arizona ranks fourth in the country when it comes to the most fatalities. But each one is not just a statistic.
"Since that day we've just tried to do everything we can to make other people aware that the biggest mistake you can make is thinking it can't happen to you," Jones said.
Jones has worked alongside the organization Kids and Car Safety, advocating at the legislature. Two years ago, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden. In it, it requires the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to issue a safety standard requiring back seat detection technology in all new cars. What kind of detection system is up to NHTSA.
Right now, some new cars have a system in place where if you open up the backdoor, then close it, drive, then get out of your car, an alert system will pop up telling you to check your back seat. But safety advocates want to see automakers use technology that goes one step further.
"Notify the driver on a cell phone, push notification, a phone call. Use the vehicle's existing systems like the air conditioning the windows, roll the windows down," said Amber Rollins, director of Kids and Car Safety.
Rollins says the technology exists and it's more effective than the typical alert system. NHTSA has until November to sign off on it, but she says it appears they're behind schedule and it wouldn't be the first time. She says after being ordered to put backup cameras in all new cars, it took NHTSA 10 years to act.
"We watched 50 children backed over every week during those 10 years of delays," said Rollins. "What do we do to hold them accountable for what is congressionally mandated of them?"
For Angela, she says it's not a risk anyone should be willing to take.
"It would've saved our daughter," she said. "Just even the simple text message to a phone saying there's still someone in your car. He could've been out there in 30 seconds."
ABC15 asked NHTSA if they were behind schedule and if they have plans to implement more modern technology.
In a statement they said, "NHTSA is working to meet the time frames directed by Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The agency is currently conducting research that will support rulemaking options that can provide safety benefits beyond what was mandated in the law, namely capabilities for occupant detection."
