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Further implications
Though the newly increased penalties can affect Victorian parents in many circumstances, not only where they have left children unattended in a car, the clear aim of the revised legislation is to prevent children being left alone in parked vehicles.
This is a significant problem which has attracted attention particularly in countries with high summer temperatures such as Australia and the United States. There is an endeavour in both countries to reduce the incidence of such unfortunate events, though in neither country is there consensus about how best to do so.
The tendency in some American states is more punitive than in Australia, with a significant number of parents being charged with manslaughter after the death of a child left unattended in a car. The number of convictions achieved in these circumstances is small. Most of those charged have been able to demonstrate that they were in all other respects caring and attentive parents.
A specific defence has been developed, 'forgotten baby syndrome'. This describes the psychological and environmental circumstances that increase the likelihood a parent will leave a child in a car. Generally the contributing factors involve a parent under significant stress and a change in the daily routine surrounding care of the child. What has been conspicuously impossible to prove in such cases is intent, that is, that the parent deliberately left the child.
Where intent or deliberation is not a factor, attempts to change behaviour through penalties are of little value. If the parent does not intend to abandon the child, then penalties designed to discourage him or her from doing so are unlikely to succeed. Those who speed generally do so deliberately; drink driving is usually a premeditated offence. In cases where there is conscious choice then penalties can act as a deterrent. However, where the action is genuinely an accident, then deterrent measures will be to no avail.
One solution that has been proposed is to fit cars with devices that indicate when a child has been left in the vehicle. A range of options have been developed, including pressure pads on back seats and alarm devices fitted to ignitions.
Forgetting children in cars is in part a problem created by car safety installations and regulations determining how children can be transported in cars. Some thirty years ago it became illegal in many jurisdictions to carry a baby or young child in the front seat of a car. This was a response to the popularity of airbags which, when they are deployed, can injure a child in the front seat. Children were to be carried in the back seat. Then it was mandated that for safety reasons baby capsules had to be fitted facing the back of the car. The combined effect of these changes was that babies were no longer in the parent's field of vision. It suddenly became much easier to leave a quiet or sleeping child or baby in a car.
There have been attempts in a number of American states to sell or mandate alarm devices in cars, warning a child has been left behind in the vehicle. This has not happened, in part because most parents do not believe they would ever be so careless. This is behaviour that other people are guilty of.
Before a technological solution is accepted there will have to be a widespread education campaign to demonstrate that under the right set of unfortunate circumstances, virtually anyone can leave the child in the car.