About 5000 young children need to be rescued from hot cars every year after being left behind, putting their lives at risk, so a new in-car safety device has been made in Australia, looking to solve the serious problem.
The locally designed and manufactured product in question, Infalurt, is claimed to be “the first of its kind” by its founder, Jason Cawthra.
“After seeing the tragic death rates for children left unattended in child car safety seats, I commenced a global search to identify if an alarm system already existed. It didn’t. I made it my mission to develop a simple and effective device,” he said.
Infalurt has three components, including a capacity sensor that is positioned below the child seat, a control unit that’s placed near the driver, and a vibrating key-fob alarm.
These communicate with one another and trigger an alarm if a child is left behind when the driver exits the vehicle.
“Just as fitted car seats are mandatory, we believe this device is just as necessary to keep kids safe,” Mr Cawthra added. “Infalurt was developed to give parents peace of mind. We would like to see every car fitted with an alert system to prevent needless deaths.”
It’s worth noting some newer Hyundai and models offer a similar in-built feature called Rear Occupant Alert, although it offers in-car audio and visual alerts instead.
The complete Infalurt system is available to purchase on the Infalurt website for $369, but its three components can be bought separately if required.