Fatal Distraction

I just read a story in the Washington Post that’s going to stay with me a long, long time. It’s by Gene Weingarten, it’s brilliantly written, and it will break your heart.

You have been warned.

The story is about people who have accidentally left their babies in their cars in the heat, with fatal results. I could write thousands of words about the issues touched on in the story—the psychology of “automatic pilot,” the economics of preparing for rare events, our moral culpability for risk and error, the reactions of strangers to tragic mistakes, the grandstanding of public officials…but the story is so overwhelming in itself that I’m not going to try to add anything right now.

It’s a great story, but the subject is awful. If you have a baby and you think it might strike you close to home, you might not want to read it. Other people have said they’re sorry they did.

But if you read it. Read it to the very end. The end is important.

Here it is: Fatal Distraction.