Alarms may be required to prevent more day care deaths
NASHVILLE (AP) — Since 1997, five children have died after being left in Tennessee day care vans, and nothing state officials or lawmakers have done has appeared to make a difference.
Earlier this month, a Memphis child was left in a van nine hours but survived because the weather was cool. Most of the deaths occurred in the summer when temperatures in the vehicles reached more than 100 degrees.
Sen. Roscoe Dixon of Memphis — where four of the children died — is pushing a bill he hopes will prevent future tragedies.
It would require day care vans, buses and other large vehicles to be equipped with a system that forces drivers to walk to the back of the vehicle before they get off and push a button to prevent an alarm from sounding. That way they may find a child who otherwise would be left onboard.
The bill was approved last week by the Senate General Welfare Committee despite concerns that it would increase costs for day care operators and potentially give a Memphis company that makes such systems a monopoly.
Alex Wiley, president of ATWEC Technologies Inc., told lawmakers that his KiddeVoice system costs $450 installed, “about the cost of four new tires,” and that no child has ever been left on a vehicle equipped with it.
Some day care operators and drivers have found a way to get around similar alarms — one left a child in a van after exiting, walking around the outside, opening the door from the back and pushing the button.
But Wiley said his installers put the button too far from the door for that to occur.
If the alarm is not turned off six minutes after the ignition key is turned off, sirens sound and lights flash.
“The people using our system are the ones you never see in the news,” Wiley said.
Shelby County HeadStart centers have had the KiddeVoice system in all 23 of its school buses since 1999.
“If all day cares had it, I don’t see how they would leave anybody in a van or bus,” said Shirley Davis, transportation specialist for HeadStart, which buses more than 1,000 children a day to 10 of its 13 centers.
The committee changed the legislation so that it doesn’t require such systems to be ignition-based, which would allow several companies to compete for the business.
The state Department of Human Services, which licenses day cares, would come up with rules and regulations about what alarm systems qualify.
Wiley said he has a patent pending on his system, which is unique because it uses a person’s voice to warn drivers to turn off the alarm, rather than relying on a tone that some people may not be able to hear.
Sen. David Fowler, R-Signal Mountain, wants to limit the impact of the legislation to the Memphis area and have the Department of Human Services issue a report after two years saying how effective it is “before we extend this cost to everyone across the state.”
Several day care operators have complained in recent years that costly state mandates are driving them out of business.
After the first deaths, lawmakers passed laws requiring that drivers and workers inspect vans and check off youngsters by name after driving children to or from day care centers.
DHS also began surprise inspections to ensure that all rules and regulations were followed.
Fowler said no child had died on a day care van in his area of Southeast Tennessee, and “I don’t know what goes on in Shelby County that people do not check their vans.”
Sen. John Ford, a Memphis Democrat who chairs the committee, said Fowler had been lucky so far, but that likely won’t last.
“We cannot afford, when it comes to the safety and welfare of children, … for something to happen before we act,” Ford said.
“One child dying in a van is too many.”
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Read Senate Bill 3258/House Bill 3368 at http://www.legislature.state.tn.us