Ensuring Safety for Adoptive Families
What do adopting a child and online tech solutions have in common? A lot, if your mission is to ensure that kids are as safe as can be on the road. SaverOne, an Israeli start-up that has developed a device that stops drivers from using their phones while driving is paving the way for families that hope to create safe environments for their loved-ones to be in, especially during childhood when they are particularly susceptible to harm. I discuss the legalities of adoption in Washington State, and explain how SaverOne’s technology aims to keep adoptive and biological children safe in the context of the law. SaverOne’s mission: Keep drivers focused on the road. They accomplish this by utilizing a unique combination of hardware and software that send alerts, while locking down the drivers’ phone, once the driver gets behind the wheel. This technology is groundbreaking because it doesn’t require the driver to self-report their information online or get behind the wheel with a camera. The user need not take off their seatbelt at any point, nor do they need to give up their car keys; all SaverOne requires is access to the phone and the car ignition. Stopping a driver from getting distracted is their top priority, and they’ve devised an innovative way to accomplish that goal in those drivers who are oblivious to themself and the people around them. Children deserve to be safe when they are on the road; and this tech solution ensures that they will be, whether they themselves are driving, or whether they are getting driven by someone else. In the case of adoptive parents, this looks like safeguarding their biological children and their adopted children. And-like in so many other cases-adoptive parents benefit from observing the law.
The law in Washington defines adoption thus: “Adoption is a legal process whereby one person, the “adoptive parent,” becomes the legal parent of a child under the age of 18 years; the biological parents lose all parental rights.” (comprehensive Washington adoption laws). As Washington law dictates, the adoptive parent’s fundamental right to raise their child as they see fit, supersedes the rights of all other parties (Washington Adoption Laws). Their duty to safeguard the environmental space in which their children are often found must not only be undertaken by the parents, but must also be enforced by the law. Washington Law goes so far as to list the obligation of an adoptive parent to be their child’s legal guardian, thus suggesting that an adoptive parent’s role is protecting their child from anything that could hurt him or her (Washington Adoption Laws). SaverOne’s hardware and software is designed to protect the children from harm. In the context of an adoptive family, this looks like taking all steps necessary to ensure that their children will be safe from being hit by a driver who has lost focus on the road due to their urge to check their phone.
Helping the driver concentrate on the road and get to where they need to go without the anxiety of constantly worrying about losing track of their mobile phone for a few minutes, lessens the stress of worrying about whether or not your child will make it home safely…or a co-worker, a sibling, or a parent. The law in Washington mandates that adoptive and biological parents act as the legal guardians of their children, while SaverOne’s tech solution promotes ensuring that role.
Say you are an adoptive parent – you are responsible for your children’s welfare, and for ridding the environmental space in which your children exist of the threat that they may end up being injured in a preventable accident caused by someone’s distracted driving. You have the money, but you don’t want the hassle of dealing with employers, and the red tape that often accompanies most purchases of tech solutions. SaverOne cuts to the chase, allowing you to buy a package that contains the number of devices you need per car, and get to work on keeping your children safe. They provide you the peace of mind that you always wanted, but didn’t realize you were missing out on. Simply stated, I would contact SaverOne through the website and set up a consultation, where I would ask them to go over what the product does, and how it works. My ultimate goal would be to use it within my family, and if it works well, recommend it to people who I trust. In regard to the law, it would be using my knowledge of the laws around adopting children to help me be a better and more responsible parent. Assuring that I read the fine print, while asking questions that worry me. That’s the strategic approach of a responsible parent, and the goal of each adoptive parent. The law in Washington requires you to be responsible for your child, as well as to put safeguards into place that would ensure that your child would not be harmed, or harmed further, in ways that have already harmed them. The law requires it, and SaverOne completely agrees.
