20 Ways to Encourage Childrens Resourcefulness and Creativity
Kids N Cars: Never Leave Your Children Unattended in Your Vehicle, NOT even for a minute!
Kids ‘N CarsTM is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to pursue a greater level of public safety by informing people about the dangers of leaving children unattended in or around vehicles. People leave children unattended in vehicles more often than is widely publicized, and the results are often deadly. Kids ‘N Cars’TM database, the only one of its kind, includes more than one thousand cases where children were left unattended in or around vehicles.
Below are just a few examples of what has happened to children who were left unattended in an automobile:
* Heat stroke that led to permanent brain damage and death.
* Climbed out of a car seat and shifted the car into gear.
* Carjacking - the car and the children.
* The vehicle can be set in motion by unattended children.
* Power control activation by curious children that can lead to strangulation and other loss of life and limb.
In 1999, 27 children died of hyperthermia (heat stroke) because their parents left them locked inside the passenger compartment of a vehicle.
* Never leave children alone or unsupervised - not even for a minute.
* Never leave car keys where children can find them.
* Always lock cars so children cannot get into a car unsupervised. Unlocked cars pose serious risks to children who are naturally curious and often lack fear. Keep the doors and trunk of cars locked when parked in the garage, driveway, or near home. Parked cars can be deathtraps for kids.
* Crawl around in your family vehicle and look at everything from a child’s perspective. Where are there potential problems? Do the automatic power windows controls “pull” to go up rather than being “pushed”? Does your vehicle have transmission or brake interlocks?
* Teach children about the dangers of a car. A car is NOT a toy. In fact it can be as dangerous as a loaded gun, but weighs over two ton.
* Arm children with facts. They must understand that a vehicle is used for transporting people from place to place; it is NOT a playground.
* Car trunks become a tempting, secret place to hide, and a quick and easy place for abductors to make children disappear.
* Practice escape techniques so that if children are trapped in a car trunk, they know how to get out by yanking the tail light wires, kicking out the brake light fixture and signaling for help by waving or banging on the trunk and screaming.
* If a car has a trunk release in the trunk’s interior, make sure the children know how to use it and have them practice.
* Never leave rear seat folds open. This should prevent children from climbing into unlocked cars and finding their way into a trunk from the inside.
* Install an inside trunk release.