Hyundai Motor America praises the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Congress, Consumer Reports, and the automotive industry for making rear-seat reminder systems a standard feature on new vehicles in the future.

Hyundai Motor America will make the Rear Occupant Alert (ROA) door-logic system standard on its new vehicles by 2020, starting with the Palisade and Santa Fe models, to prevent child deaths from heatstroke in vehicles. The company will also make the optional Ultrasonic Rear Occupant Alert, or another similar sensor-based system, available on future models.

The 2020 Sonata, which will be available in dealerships later this year, will also have a standard door-logic ROA, while the 2019 Santa Fe already has the Ultrasonic ROA feature available as an option.

“Heatstroke in vehicles is preventable, and we are doing our part to prevent this,” said Mike O’Brien, Vice President, Product, Corporate and Digital Planning, Hyundai Motor America. “We have great systems that use both door logic memory and motion sensors to help prevent children and pets from being forgotten in the car, but it also helps in case children accidentally lock themselves in.”

The ROA system detects if a rear door was opened or closed before the car was started, and sends a message to the driver on the center cluster to check the back seat before exiting the vehicle. On the other hand, the Ultrasonic ROA detects a child or a pet’s movements in the second-row seats. If the driver exits the car and the sensors detect movement in the backseat, then the system will honk the horn and send an alert to the driver’s smartphone via Hyundai’s Blue Link connected car system (if Blue Link service is equipped and active).