These are preventable deaths period.

But all of this requires at least some admission or understanding that it could happen to you. You could make a mistake.

It’s one idea out of many. Some suggest a stick on mirror that shows into the car seat, others have suggested putting their purse or a shoe back there. Cars don’t have backseat sensors, but there might be some that individual consumers can buy and install themselves.

You leave your purse next to the baby not because your purse is more important than your baby and thus you bother to remember it, but because it disrupts your routine and forces your brain out of autopilot mode. Read the WaPo article linked in this piece and come back if you still have questions.

Oh absolutely. The same mentality is present in the people who think owning a gun will save them from being a victim of a violent crime, or that the girl only got raped because she went out alone dressed like that, etc etc.

The whole point is that I actually don’t need to know anything about you to say that, save that you’re a human being with a human brain, wired just as strangely as all the other human brains.

Right, but the whole point of the article is that they did not leave their children to die in a hot car because they were “busy at work.” I’m surprised that’s all you got out of Gene Weingarten’s work on this subject.

Have you read the WaPo article that’s linked in the article?

I think that WaPo article should be required reading for everyone.

Have you ever had to switch the leash from hand to hand? Or needed to use your hand to hold something briefly, like grabbing a poop baggie or the house keys?

If the dog had half decent leash training and socialization and a walker with four functioning brain cells,

Clearly a reasonable and free market-compatible law, seems very on-brand for Texas.

TAL is good stuff!

That’s interesting, because I’ve always heard the opposite: do not carry your passport around regularly because they are so important and difficult to replace if they are lost or stolen. I must admit that I only have one kind of legal picture ID, my passport is expired now and my debit card doesn’t have a picture on…

Huh, wow. I had no idea. I was in a college town at the time, so most of the bar patrons had out of state IDs, perhaps that’s why it wasn’t a problem there.

Yeah, it’s very common, completely unfair, and very frustrating. If you or your wife is interested in this topic, This American Life recently did a story about a much more dangerous example of this.

Everyone should always be carded. I’m arguing the opposite point: you can’t always tell someone’s age just by looking at them, which is why we carry around legal identification cards to verify we are who we say we are. The LW isn’t upset she was carded, she’s upset that after presenting her legal ID the bartender…

Well everyone should be carded, that’s the way to avoid this type of situation. Ideally once a person produces a legally valid ID though the issue would be resolved.

So when you made fun of me for using “absurd” repetitively I thought you were just being glib, but now this is twice you’ve gone for unprovoked personal attacks. I have been assuming we were all just having an interesting debate on the ins-and-outs of alcohol and IDs, but you seem to be emotionally invested in this…

So yeah, if you have a super young-looking face and an unusual out-of-state ID, you should “just accept” that you will occasionally be denied that swig of booze you so desperately crave.