Law to prevent child daycare van deaths fails to pass

PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. - Nearly one year after 2 1/2 year old Haile Brockington's young body was left behind strapped in a hot daycare van, a bill designed to save other children from the same tragic ending failed to become law.

"It's sad, very sad," said Democrat State Senator Maria Sachs of Delray Beach. Sachs proposed "Haile's Bill," which would require all Florida daycare vans be equipped with alarms that must be manually turned off. The alarms would require drivers to walk to the back of the vans to turn them off making sure no child is left behind.

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate, but failed in the House of Representatives. Sachs says politics got in the way.

"The Speaker of the House said they were not going to hear any of my bills. I was like ‘please let this one pass, this one's important’ and he said no," said Sachs.

Haile's bill was the senator's first priority bill.

What the bill would have done has already been a priority to Katie Muhammad, owner of Katie's Kids, where Haile died. Four months after the little girl’s death, Muhammad spent $6,000 equipping all of her transportation vehicles with similar child alarm systems.

"I'm very disappointed in legislation for not passing that because that's a huge problem we have and will continue to have," said Muhammad. "There's always going to be human error, there's been recent incidents where children have still been left in vehicles," she said.

It was an effort born out of tragedy that is now being put on hold indefinitely.

"To think that Florida being such a dangerously hot time in the summer, that we would have to go through another summer without this technology really shows that politics gets in the way of safety," said Sachs.

Haile Brockington's mother said the fact that the bill did not pass was a real shame. “This says, the issue is more important to parents, than lawmakers, " said Nelder Lester.

Sachs will introduce the bill next session. In the meantime, she plans on contacting every daycare center in Florida over the next few weeks, encouraging them to invest in alarm systems without the legislative mandate.