Bendigo has been ranked as one of the worst offending cities for leaving children in cars - something you would think would be, well, unthinkable, on a baking hot day.

And yet over summer, with almost monotonous regularity, emergency services are alerted to children left in cars when the “responsible” adult “pops” into the shops.

So we set out to test just how hot a car can get on a day when records were expected to fall.

Journalist Emma D’Agostino - with help and encouragement from our office assistant Astrid Michael - whipped up a batch of cupcakes, pancakes and biscuits and put them in a car left out in the sun to see what would happen.

Read more: Children die in hot cars, authorities warn Bendigo residents

It wasn’t even at the hottest part of the day when we started - just after 9am. We wondered what would happen. Would they rise? And if they did, how long would it take?

For non-bakers out there, a batch of cup-cakes is normally put into the oven at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Ours took far longer to cook - a couple of hours - but cook they did. And far more quickly than people expected.

Imagine if you were in the car what it would be doing to you? Or your children? Or your pets?

Food has been used to illustrate the point before - cooking a pork roast or an egg in the car. In all cases the heat through the windscreen magnifies the effect. 

It’s easy to underestimate the effects of a hot car. Get into a hot vehicle on a day like yesterday is a shock to the system. During our experiment a therometer burst at 50 degrees. At about 3.30pm it was registering as close to 80 degrees. 

Try driving in that. It doesn’t take long to feel a bit woozy, a bit headachey, not feeling quite right, a bit of an upset stomach … and needing a lot of water urgently. Now imagine you’re locked in a car, buckled into a seat and too small to get yourself out. So think twice. Next time you plan to leave your kids in the car while you do the shopping - don’t.

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