Company creates high-tech car seat in hopes of keeping babies safe

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. (KTVU) - One of the world's largest retailers has teamed up with a trusted baby supply company to stem the awful toll of kids inadvertently left to die from heatstroke in cars. It is sure to be a solution well worth the price.

Out of tragedy, technology often finds a solution.

Payton's dad forgot to drop his daughter, who was sleeping in the back seat, off at day care before work.

"The moment that changed my life and our family's forever is when I found Payton in the back seat, still in her car seat. All I heard was myself screaming… don't think it can't happen to you. I didn't think it could happen to me and it did," says Payton's father Reggie.

The problem is - this is all too common. "About 38 children die each year from being left behind in the cars, 50 percent of those are forgotten either by the parents or caregivers or a close family member," says Emma Olenberger, a  AAA Traffic Safety Specialist.

On Friday, Evenflo and Walmart announced a new kind of baby seat. SensorSafe seat technology is a wireless system that connects the seat to your car's computer. Evenflo says that SensorSafe works with the car's onboard diagnostic system, to remind the driver in a series of gentle tones that a baby is present in the vehicle.

Though the seat currently sells for $150, this is the kind of safety technology that can't help but spread very, very quickly and when mass produced, the price goes down, down, down and soon it will be common place. 

AAA traffic safety specialist Olenburger says the new technology is a game changer," Usually people forget when there's a distraction in their regular routine; the dog gets sick, the fridge goes out."

At Walnut Creek's Heather Farm Park, KTVU met Kevin and his 20-month-old daughter.

"That sounds like an incredible technology. I mean, it's very easy for a parent who's actually getting in and out of a car to accidentally forget something, let alone a child. So, something like this is great to keep your mind off that one extra thing to help you make it through the day," says  Filomeo.

Until you can get such technology for your little ones, simply do this. "Put your cell phone back there. Put your lunch back there, your employee ID that's gonna get you into the workplace, something that you have to go into the back seat to get," says Olenberger.

For the next year, the Evenflo Sensor Safe will be available only at Walmart and Walmart.com but the website says the first run has already sold out.