by Joyce Slaton posted in Products & Prizes

Sixteen babies and children have died so far in 2016 after being left in hot cars, when only four such deaths had taken place by this time in 2015. And the summer's just started.
Stories about parents or caregivers who tragically, accidentally forgot their children in cars are now so common that they no longer make national news, which may fool some parents into thinking it's not happening as often. And in fact, the number of hot-car deaths took a dip in 2015: 24, compared with the average yearly death toll of about 37.
Jan Null, the meteorologist who keeps statistics about hot car deaths as a sort of a grim hobby at Noheatstroke.org and was also one of the co-authors on a pioneering and seminal 2005 study about how quickly temperatures rise inside cars even in moderate weather, says he's been seeing far fewer "column inches" dedicated to hot car deaths in 2016, and fears parents may simply be unaware of the hot car danger and how frequently kids are forgotten inside cars.
He says that the Justin Ross Harris case -- the Georgia father who was accused of deliberately leaving his son Cooper to die in his car -- got heavy coverage in 2015, and he hypothesizes that deaths went down that year because of that awareness.
Now, in 2016, with hot-car death coverage waning, the number of deaths are back up again. "I don't know if lowered awareness is creating that impact or if it's coincidental," says Null, who not...