New tech could help detect babies left in hot cars

It's a parent's worst nightmare. Juan Rodriguez was leaving his work for the day, when he called his wife to pick up their 1-year-old twins at daycare. But when he got into the driver's seat and looked in the rearview mirror, he realized he'd made a fatal mistake that morning.

The twins had been left in the car — which reached sweltering temperatures in the July heat — for eight hours.

According to the video above, a child dies in hot car every week in the United States, mostly due to what doctors are calling Forgotten Baby Syndrome.

"It's really a perfect storm of a number of different factors," says psychologist Joshua Rosenthal. "If the parent who typically does not drop them off at daycare is asked to do it, and they start off on their normal drive to work, and they're supposed to deviate to drop them off at daycare, the child falls asleep, and [the parent] completely loses awareness that [the baby] is in the car."

With the frequency of how many babies are accidentally left in hot cars, new legislation may start to pressure car manufacturers into fitting safety devices into their vehicles to prevent this from happening.

From either a visual alert on the car's dashboard, to a car alarm that goes off when the driver starts to walk away from the vehicle, there are many minor tweaks that companies could make to help parents remember their young children in the backseat.

The future technology is hopeful in preventing more of these tragedies occurring and keeping more kids safe.