New car park line markings to prevent parents accidentally locking kids in cars
Parents are being urged to keep their keys on them, with new data revealing at least one child is accidentally locked in a car every day in Western Australia.Data from RAC Western Australia collected between 2014 to 2018 saw the Roadside Assistance Service rescue over 2,200 kids locked in cars along with the car keys, an average of 440 call outs per year.
The alarming statistics have been released as part of RAC’s new Keep Your Keys on You campaign which aims to create awareness of the issue, reduce the number of accidental lock-ins, and prevent potentially fatal accidents.
RAC has replaced traditional lines with a pattern of keys at shopping centre car parks. The message ‘Keep your keys on you’ is positioned on the line markings so when the driver opens their car door it appears in front of them.
RAC Roadside Patrolman Ray Farrugia says that modern car security technology is making it harder to rescue children from new and luxury vehicles quickly, with access to some cars proving extremely difficult.
“On a typical Australian summer day, the temperature inside a parked car can be 20 to 30 degrees hotter than the outside temperature. We receive call outs to accidental lock-ins all year round, so we urge parents and guardians to never leave their child unattended in a car.”
The biggest bit of advice Ray Farrugia can give is, “Never give your child the car keys to play with and make sure you don’t close your doors and boot until you’ve sighted your keys.” This proves to be one of the main reasons why kids and keys are locked in the car.
So far, the Key Lines have been rolled out at two shopping centres in Perth. At Lakeside Joondalup, one of the state’s largest shopping centres, as well as Claremont Quarter. There are plans to continue to roll out the Key Lines throughout WA.
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