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Stop. You've left the kid in the car
Two Israelis develop unique device to remind parents that their children are in the car immediately after they open the door to get out. 'If your car has a system that lets you know your lights are still on, why not one that gives warning about your baby, too?' said developers
Benny Barak
Trying to prevent the next tragedy. Two Israeli innovators recently developed a new system for preventing parents from accidentally locking their kids in the car. The invention has already been registered as an international patent. The principle is fairly simple. If you have opened the doors and have left the child in the car seat, a verbal warning will remind you to take the child out of the car.
The system is very sensitive to any weight, such that even if you left a milk carton in the seat, it will give you a warning.
"This is a very inexpensive system that is compatible with any car seat and can be installed yourself," explained engineer, Idan Nahami, 26, who developed the new invention together with his brother-in-law, Moshe Attias. "Unfortunately, we need a device like this in Israel. Our patent includes a special light bulb that must be screwed into the car's light fixture instead of the regular bulb. This light bulb, in addition to acting like a regular light bulb, sends out an infrared signal as soon as the door is open and the internal illumination is automatically activated.
"The second part of the system includes a cushion installed underneath the car seat or booster seat the child sits on, or on the back of the seat. This cushion is activated as soon it detects that something is sitting on it, and initiates a 'dialogue' with the infrared light. The cushion also has a buzzer that goes off as long as the door is open and the child is sitting in the seat."
Nahami, a communications engineer who works at Cisco Israel, started thinking about developing such a system two years ago. Even though he is a bachelor and doesn't have any children, he was horrified when he heard about the one-and-a-half-year-old toddler, Ophir Balilti, who was accidentally left in the car by her father.
"I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was a painful, unnecessary death and a trauma that will follow the parent for the rest of his life. A test that I did revealed that the temperature in a car left in the sun for 20 minutes increases from 37 C (98 F) to more than 47 C (116 F). After 40 minutes, the temperature can reach more than 58 C (136 F). These figures aren't etched strongly enough in the minds of parents who forget their kids in the car, or worse, who knowingly leave them in the car 'for just a minute.'"
Nahami contacted his brother-in-law, a real-estate agent by profession, and the two invested their money in the project with the initial thought of creating a connection between the car's lighting system and the children sitting in their car seats.
"If a car can give a warning that you left the lights on when you open the door, why can't it do this for a child left in the back seat as well?" said Nahami.
The two are currently waiting for the system to pass consumer standards boards. They are also in negotiations with various chain stores who will market the new system.
Nahami estimates that the system will be priced around NIS 100 (about $25). The system will be transferable from one car to another. Tests that have been carried out on 90 different types of vehicles have proven the system to be highly consistent and effective.
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