Mercury Rising: Are you Safe from the Texas Heat?

Texas’ summer sun sends temperatures soaring — are your loved ones protected?

When you think about summers in Texas, you think of kids playing in the sprinklers, families enjoying ice cream on the patio, and late-night conversations beneath the stars. But what is commonly forgotten are the sky-high temperatures inside your car while it bakes beneath the summer sun.

When left exposed to the heat, your car’s interior can reach temperatures over 200 degrees Fahrenheit, making it more suited for baking cookies than for holding passengers.

Unfortunately, it’s not trays of uncooked snickerdoodles that many drivers leave unattended while running inside stores for “short” errands or “quick” transactions. Instead, it’s children and pets that are too often left to bear those dangerous temperatures. According to the website NoHeatstroke.org, 39 children in the U.S. died of heat stroke in 2016 as a result of being left in a hot car, with seven of those deaths occurring in the Lone Star State. 

Busting temperature myths

But it’s not only on “ozone days” or the dreaded “triple-digit days” of summer that it’s dangerous to leave a loved one in the car; interior temperatures rise nearly 20 degrees above the outdoor climate in less than just 10 minutes in the sun.

“Children have died in cars with the temperature as low as 63 degrees,” said Jan Null, certified consulting meteorologist with Golden Gate Weather Services and lecturer at the Department of Meteorology & Climate Science, San Jose State University. “Basically the car becomes a greenhouse. At 70 degrees on a sunny day, after a half hour, the temperature inside a car is 104 degrees. After an hour, it can reach 113 degrees.”

The science behind the scorch

The molecules that make up the glass of a car windshield are spaced evenly enough that small light waves (like gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet rays, and visible light) are able to slip between them with ease. However, the larger light waves from the sun, like the deeper spectrum of infrared lights, are unable to pass between the molecules and are instead reflected off the glass, only leaving behind the heat from the rays.

This scientific phenomenon is what is responsible for all those hot dashboards, steaming steering wheels, and scorching car seats. Since the heat produced by these objects is unable to leave the car due to the molecules of the glass, the heat bounces around the interior and becomes absorbed by the air at a rapid rate that increases the car’s interior drastically above the exterior temperatures.
In short, the sun can turn the inside of the car into an oven.

Texas laws and what you need to know

Even after spending a few minutes in a hot car, most adults will begin to get uncomfortable. But since kiddos and pets don’t have the same ability as an adult to regulate their body heat, their little bodies can rise in temperature anywhere from three to five times as quickly as that of an adult.

Because of this, Texas law forbids a person from leaving a child in a car for longer than five minutes if the child is younger than 7 and left unattended without an individual 14 years of age or older (a felony earning up to two years in jail with fines up to $10,000 if the child is injured), and more legislation is currently in Congress that would protect good Samaritans when rescuing children left alone in cars. Until that legislation passes, it’s best to call 911 if you see a child unattended in a hot vehicle.

Plan ahead and prepare for the likely scenario that you’ll have to wake a sleeping baby or take an extra trip home to drop off Spike before heading to the store. It goes without saying, the risk is not worth the reward when it comes to leaving tiny Texans and family pets in your car — even for a minute.

Your Texas Farm Bureau membership can help keep your car safe for your children this summer with big discounts on car seats. Visit TexasFarmBureau.org/MemberBenefits for more details.

Coverage and discounts are subject to qualifications and policy terms and may vary by situation.