Grainne, I respect you greatly
Thank you; that means a lot to me.
but there is simply no excuse for this person to have left their child to bake to death. NONE.
It's not an excuse, it's a fact about human memory. What happened to that little boy was horrible--death via overheating is horrible. But forgetting things, even important things, is a predictable part of the human condition due to the way human memory works.
This little boy died because his parents allowed him to die and that is criminal regardless of "OOOPS, I forgot"..
I bet he did not forget his cell phone and briefcase in the car....
And yet, how many people do just that every single day? People forget many different things and it usually has little connection to how highly they value those things. For instance, if you ask my husband what the happiest day of his life has been so far, he would immediately say it was the day we decided to marry (I've heard him). But does he remember to celebrate it? Not without his supplemental memory and her name is Grainne Dhu!
Forgetting something under those conditions is predictable. It just is. The father wasn't quite in his normal routine--he was performing the routine task of driving to work but he usually did not have his son with him, so he had not developed any routine that included his son during that particular task at that particular time of day. That's one factor that is highly likely to end up with someone forgetting.
The second factor was a disturbance to his usual routine--the father saw a hit and run accident and got the license plate number. He was then juggling a familiar routine with a new task and the way human memory works is to snap back to the usual routine.
It's likely that the child was napping or asleep during the drive. Some kids are active in the car but I've known many for whom getting into the car is like a sleeping pill--they immediately nod off.
I can't remember their name but there is a USAn family whose child died under very similar circumstances. They were never charged; the police decided it was an honest mistake.
They are trying to teach parents to put a bandanna on the carseat. When a child is in the carseat, the bandanna is tied to the car keys. Simple, easy reminder to check the carseat.