'Forgot your baby’ alarms launched after spate of car overheating deaths
ITALY’S Transport Minister proposed making it compulsory for parents to fit an alarm which will warn them if they accidentally forgot their child in the car following a tragic string of deaths.
This dangerous absent-mindeded behaviour is known as “forgotten baby syndrome” and it can end with the death of the child from heatstroke.
One child has suffered this horrible death every year in Italy since 2011.
But Danilo Toninelli, the country’s new Transport Minister, announced last weekend the government is ready to tackle this issue by making compulsory for parents to have child seats fitted with alarms.
The new technology would send sound warnings on the driver’s car electronic keys or smartphone, and it should cost around £88.
The minister wrote on Facebook: “I’m a father who, like many, lives through complicated and stressful times that can cause distraction.
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I’m a father who, like many, lives through complicated and stressful times that can cause distraction. No one can say that the life of a child is not worth €100
“No one can say that the life of a child is not worth €100.”
Mr Toninelli, a member of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement which earlier this year formed a government with far-right wing Matteo Salvini’s Lega, also said that around 800 similar deaths have been recorded in the United States in recent years.
Despite Italy's much smaller death toll, he added that “even a single case in unacceptable.”
His remark follows the death of a nearly one-year-old girl who in May was forgotten in the car by her father in Pisa.
Another similar death happened just over a year ago near the city of Arezzo, where a mother forgot her 16-month-old outside her workplace.
The baby died of a heart attack after being left in the sun for six hours, and was discovered by her desperate mother only after she returned to the car.
Mr Toninelli explained he plans to make this new device as affordable and cost-effective as possible to help family-in-need.
He continued: ”We will take the proposal to the council of ministers shortly and we will assist people with the expense by making it tax deductible.
“These are the measures that can really change people’s lives.”
He added his ministry will also run an awareness campaign.
The new proposal could come into effect as early as in autumn and is expected to be applied to all parents with children up to the age of 11, affecting about two million car owners.
The proposal has been generally well-received by the Five Star Movement base, which usually discusses new proposals on the party’s official blog.
But one user said to be skeptical over the measure, blasting it as “technological fascism”.
He wrote: Have you lost your mind? Do you want blanket control?
“When are we going to have the obligatory installation of subcutaneous chips? Obviously for our safety?”
