Waze Releases App Safety Feature To Prevent Child Hot Car Deaths

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Navigation app, Waze has recently released a great new safety feature which reminds users of the app, not to forget about their child, pet or any passenger in the car before getting out.

Amid concerns around a number of recent child hot car deaths, Waze released the update called “Child reminder” to the public, which is available on the Android and iOS App stores.

Ironically, on the same day the app was publicly released, a set of 15-month-old twins died in Georgia after allegedly being left in a hot car by their father, police said.

On average, 37 children die from heatstroke fatalities per year in the U.S and this year alone, there have already been 26 heatstroke deaths where children have been involved.

Waze’s Head of Brand, Julie Mossler spoke to ABC News Today “We’re constantly listening to our users’ requests and concerns, as well as paying attention to the news and looking into issues drivers face,” she mentioned that “Just as drivers sometimes forget to turn off their headlights, they sometimes forget things in the car too,”

When speaking about the new feature she said that “This new feature helps keep people present in the vehicle and gives them a important, possibly life-saving reminder, that drivers sometimes need.”

The new feature is set up as an alert which can be turned on and off in the general settings of the device.

The app even allows some personalisation whereby Drivers can customize the alert “to include their child’s name or pet’s name — anything that will get their attention at the end of a drive,” says Mossler.

Mossler also advised that the alert will only appear if a driver has entered a destination in app and has arrived at that destination.