Is There a Baby in That Car?

I had a dream.
I take my dreams very seriously. Well, not the silly ones where I go to school on the day of finals and I suddenly remember the math class I've forgotten to attend all semester.
I pay attention to the ones that seem real.

Last night I dreamed I stopped by my old landlord's place. His father died earlier in the week (in real life) and I wanted to see if there was anything I could help with. He's always upgrading his house, and there were signs of recent construction everywhere. I set to work cleaning the drywall dust off his cabinets (no wonder I'm always tired, I even clean in my sleep).
While I wiped, he opened up and talked about his dad. Eventually his wife came in, and then his daughter and her kids.
That's when I remembered that I had brought my two youngest with me and had left them both been in the car, since I was only stopping to give my condolences. In the car, the whole time I had been there.
In the dream, I ran screaming towards my car (slow motion running) telling myself all the way that there was no way they were still alive. It was a hot day.

For a moment, I had a glimpse of what the "innocent" people must go through. I'm not talking about the morons who need to be eliminated from the gene pool-- those people who leave their kids in the car while they attend a party, I'm talking about the Dad who offers to take the baby to the day care and since it's not his normal routine, forgets. Statistics show that deaths increased when it became mandatory to face the seats to the rear, babies not seen are forgotten.

Last night made me realize how easily that could happen in our chaotic schedule.

There are folks trying to come up with a solution.

Kids and Cars is urging a system that would sound some kind of alarm, Audi and Mercedes-Benz have incorporated a ventilation cooling system for their top-of-the-line cars (although some experts argue that parents would feel that with such a device, they would think it was ok to leave the kids in the car).
The Baby Safety line seems to have something with a device that looks like a long phone cord (remember the kind you would rap around your finger as your best friend spilled the latest gossip?). It connects your keys to your baby's seat, and when you leave the car, you remove it from your keys and snap it to the car's dashboard. It's a reminder that you have company.

The idea that I thought our family could utilize regularly is the Teddy Bear/doll routine.

Each car carries a bear or large doll in the car seat. When the baby is placed in the seat, the doll moves up to the passenger seat. After the baby is removed from the car, the doll is replaced. A front seat reminder is better than a quiet, sleeping, rear-facing baby.

It's a solution everyone can afford. I don't see us owing a Mercedes-Benz in this lifetime, but we do have a few Teddy Bears hanging around the house.

What safety measures have you incorporated into your life for your children? Do you have talking fire detectors that alert the children of danger in your own voice? Do you have a car seat system?