There's a renewed interest to require alarms in day care vans.
Mary Nelson owns a day care center in Milwaukee, and she's not waiting around for the idea to become law. The owner of Mother Jones Child Care Academy wants to prevent a tragedy from occurring at her business, so she voluntarily installed the alarm.
"The reason I got it was because there was another day care down there and a little baby died in one of those vans. … I think she was about six-to-eight weeks old, and it's upsetting me so bad."
Recent incidents of children being forgotten in day care vans are again bringing attention to the idea of installing occupant safety alarms near the back of the vans, which must be manually disarmed when the vehicle's engine is turned off.
Nelson's primary concern is safety for the children. She says she usually works sun up 'til midnight, but that's not always enough.
"For my peace of mind … if it's not for anybody else but for my peace of mind … because I can't … I don't be here all the time. I try to be here as much as possible. My day is … I just try to keep, you know, try to keep the children safe."
There are already policies in place for van drivers to do a walk-through to check for remaining kids, but Nelson says the kiddy alarm acts as a back-up measure. She says we are all human and accidents happen, but sometimes we have to be extra careful … for the children.
Nelson had the alarm installed in each of her two vans last summer at a total cost of around 900 bucks.
This is the third time State Senator Spencer Coggs (D-Milwaukee) has introduced legislation to require the alarms
AUDIO: Jackie Johnson report (1:42 MP3)
