Trigger warning, the article uses very descriptive and disturbing language to describe the death of a child... not something I really wanted to read today. But

Trigger warning, the article uses very descriptive and disturbing language to describe the death of a child... not something I really wanted to read today. But as an engineer of machines that test automotive safety systems, including the LATCH restraints that anchored the carseats in which those children sat, and also the window motors that sealed them in, I wonder if there's more we could do here on a systemic level. We live in a society that uses a mode of transportation which has two characteristics: One, to be safe at speed, small children must be buckled in the back by adults known to be fallible, forgetful, imperfect humans, in such a way that the toddler cannot escape, and two, because the vehicle must be theft-proof and rain-proof, when parked in ordinary sunlight, it becomes a greenhouse which would kill a child in that seat. There are 1.4 billion vehicles in the world, it's only a matter of time before probability will cause these problems to align. Knowing that this is a thing that could happen - no, poor choice of language, WILL happen again - how could we build a better car that will avoid these issues? Many new cars have infrared temperature sensors for automatic climate control, why not run the fan to keep the internal temperature survivable for the first 24 hours it's locked? It's already a pain dealing with automotive requirements that wiring and circuits be capable of a -40 to 105 C temperature range. Why not relax these for the cabin, and include vents or louvers (or crack the sunroof automatically) to allow air exchange when parked? Cars also have microphones inside the cabin for hands-free phone use, could the mic pick up the distress of a child and sound the horn/alarm or open the windows? No, I don't want to encourage people to leave their kids in their cars, and I don't want anyone's battery to run dead, or their upholstery to get rained on, or their car to be cold in the snow, or a lowered window to result in thefts, or spurious alarms to annoy people...but those are all avoidable. On average, once per week, a kid dies in a hot car in the US. Villifying the adults isn't working, therefore, we should try something different. And no, making the climate controls smart today won't prevent the three dozen deaths we're likely to see in the next summer months, but eventually those safer cars will trickle down to parents.