This Pulitzer Prize winning peace details it. It's very graphic, and stayed with me for weeks and weeks after:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/27/AR2009022701549.html
In it, what all the parents had in common was a change in routine. He talks to memory experts and they go through the science of why this happens.
"Death by hyperthermia" is the official designation. When it happens to young children, the facts are often the same: An otherwise loving and attentive parent one day gets busy, or distracted, or upset, or confused by a change in his or her daily routine, and just... forgets a child is in the car. It happens that way somewhere in the United States 15 to 25 times a year, parceled out through the spring, summer and early fall. The season is almost upon us.
Two decades ago, this was relatively rare. But in the early 1990s, car-safety experts declared that passenger-side front airbags could kill children, and they recommended that child seats be moved to the back of the car; then, for even more safety for the very young, that the baby seats be pivoted to face the rear.
If few foresaw the tragic consequence of the lessened visibility of the child . . . well, who can blame them? What kind of person forgets a baby?
To me, the issue of rear facing goes beyond the "Well, it's safer, so of course GOOD parents would want to do this."
But there are kids who get carsick riding backward, there are parents like me who had their kids in the car routinely for 2 to 5 hour trips, where rear-facing doesn't work well, there are more risks of choking because you can't see their face easily.
Parents should certainly rearface if they choose...what makes me angry is that if you disagree, you are just lazy or don't want to be a good parent.