As summer temperatures rise, the NRMA urges parents to stay vigilant to prevent children from being trapped in hot cars, a tragedy that can be easily avoided.
For more, NRMA Spokesperson Peter Khoury joins.
We now changing gears and it's time for a difficult but really important warning this morning. Every year we see terrible outcomes when kids become trapped in hot cars, and the reality is these accidents can so easily be avoided.
It's been a hot summer too, temperature sawing above thirty degrees across the majority of the country. The NRAMA is issuing an urgent reminder for parents just to stay vigilant. So for more, let's bring in NRO mates. Spoke from Peter Courry. Pete could have you here this morning. I'm surprised at this. Eight hundred and fifty cases reported last year just people ducking into the shops or is it worse than that?
Now, Look, the majority of these cases are accidental. So it's mum and dad putting the shopping shopping bags in the back, They give the key to the babies in the seat, close the doors and inadvertently, you know, the little one.
Locks it, so you get the car.
So they're accidental. So most of the cases we get called out are accidental, and when we get there we find that, you know, the parents are more stress than the baby. But having said that, we do know that there are still where it's intentional, and it is often the case that they'll just be ducking into the shops.
Very dangerous, so dangerous in fact, that the temperature, the information that you've got about how how quickly the temperature rises is truly shocking.
What is it.
Yeah, look on a daylight today in Sydney, for example, where we are here today, the western Sydney, we could see forty degrees plus. Temperatures inside the vehicle will double within the space of a few minutes, so you're starting to get towards eighty degrees. That's cooking temperatures. Clearly not the place for a baby or your pet. And it doesn't take much time at all for those temperatures to hit that level and for some catastrophic outcomes to start to occur. If that child isn't rescued from the vehicle.
It's a matter of minutes. Once a child, baby, at or gets into heat to stretch, it's very hard to wind back from that. Now, your crews will get there quickly, but it can take a little bit of time.
Yeah, So we will put these calls. Our guys put these calls to the top of the list. Right, So even if you're not a member. If we get a call that as a baby or a pet locked in a vehicle, that will go to the top of our list. But if you happen to see a child that's distressed or a pet, don't wait, break a window, obviously a window away from where the child is and rescue that child.
Breaking windows not easy though, I mean you don't think it's easy. But on cars these days, it's not not that it's hard to crack.
Yeah, it is.
It is hard to crack.
And it's also there's this misconception that you can't lock something in a car where you can, especially with the new.
Cars, hold onto the keys, don't let the don't put the keys in the back of the hatch as you're putting shoping bag in there.
Yeah yeah, we get there within minutes.
Yeah yeah. And that is one of the great things. When you ring the NRM mate, you're actually asked. The automated thing says to you, if there's a baby or a pet in the car, you know there's a particular number that you die or to be able to give that option. All right, Peter, thank you, good advice. Thanks Peter,