Terry Bartley sits in a hot car with the windows rolled up … and records himself.

“I wanna know how it feels to be out in the car and sitting in the back seat, strapped into a car seat with the windows up and doors probably locked. … I can barely breathe out here.”

He wants others to join him in the “hot car challenge” to raise awareness about the dangers of leaving children in vehicles under a broiling sun. Bartley, a North Carolina father of three, was motivated by the death of 22-month-old Cooper Harris and similarly horrific stories about other children.

But even though Bartley and others are well-intentioned, do their videos make a difference? Or are they just dangerous?

“What starts out as a way to make a dramatic point about something we are very concerned about and does it in a very visually powerful way can also backfire,” said Nadine Kaslow, a psychiatry and behavioral sciences professor at Emory University.

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Students in Jeremy Lowe's fourth grade class at Parkside Elementary read "warm-up plays" they wrote on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. Atlanta Public Schools saw significant improvement in fourth grade math and reading scores on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress. (Miguel Martinez/ AJC)

Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez