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Kids and Car Safety proudly recognizes Toyota for implementing advanced rear-seat reminder technology in the 2025 Toyota Sienna. This innovative system, using in-cabin radar, will help prevent children from being unknowingly left behind in vehicles, a critical step in reducing hot car deaths and injuries.
Approximately 40 children in states across the country needlessly die each year due to hot car incidents, with 88% under the age of 3 years old. This new feature addresses a vital safety concern.
Alarmingly, 55% of hot car fatalities involve children who are unknowingly left inside vehicles. Toyota’s new feature addresses this urgent safety concern by utilizing millimeter-wave radar, a special class of radar technology, to detect rear-seat occupants and alert drivers. This innovative technology supports Kids and Car Safety’s mission to promote lifesaving technologies in all vehicles.
Since 1990, over 1,120 children have died in the United States from heatstroke in hot cars. Additionally, at least another 7,500 children survived with varying types and severities of injuries. This data comes from Kids and Car Safety, the country's only organization tracking fatal and non-fatal hot car incidents. Already this year, at least 36 children have tragically lost their lives.
Using millimeter-wave radar to detect rear-seat occupants and alert drivers, Toyota’s system demonstrates the feasibility and availability of lifesaving technologies in all vehicles. This feature will significantly help combat one of the leading causes of child hot car deaths, which scientific research shows often occurs due to memory lapses under stress, fatigue, and changes in routines.
Only a few automakers are currently providing occupant detection technology to prevent hot car deaths. Systems utilizing radar can be found in vehicles like the Volvo EX90 and Genesis GV70, while Kia and Hyundai offer an ultrasonic sensing system in select makes and models. Unfortunately, most auto manufacturers use an inadequate and ineffective door sequencing system that does not detect a child but only reminds a driver that the rear door was opened before the beginning of a trip. At least 7 children have died in hot cars equipped with this inferior system.
Kids and Car Safety urges all automakers to follow the lead of Toyota, Volvo, Kia, and Hyundai and integrate advanced, available, and affordable occupant detection technologies to safeguard lives.
“It is encouraging to see Toyota step towards eliminating devastating yet preventable hot car tragedies. Meanwhile, the overdue federal safety standard for hot car technology in all vehicles remains stalled at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT),” said Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Car Safety. She continued, “Automakers don’t have to wait for the federal safety standard to be issued. Like Toyota, they can and should install occupant detection and alert technology in their vehicles right away because every child and every family deserve to be safe.”
A federal hot car rule mandating affordable technology in all new vehicles to prevent hot car deaths was enacted by Congress through the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) (Pub. L. 117-58). The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), an agency of the U.S. DOT, was directed to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) by December 2022. Unfortunately, not only did the NHTSA miss this crucial deadline, but they also confirmed that the NPRM will be delayed until at least April 2025—over two years later. With children at risk of death and injury, it is urgent that the NHTSA completes this critical final rule.
Kids and Car Safety will continue to advocate for the hot car safety standard to be issued by NHTSA without further delay to ensure lifesaving technologies are standard in all vehicles to protect our most vulnerable passengers. In the meantime, the organization calls on automakers to do the right thing to protect innocent children and add state-of-the-art technology that detects and alerts the presence of children in all vehicles as quickly as possible.
Additional Info on Hot Car Tragedies:
Fact Sheet & Safety Tips
Charts, Data & Visuals
Video PSAs
Toyota’s Press Release
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