Doctors say there are multiple steps people can take to prevent children from dying in hot cars.

They say the summer months are the deadliest inside a hot car, as it only takes few minutes for temperatures to rise to dangerous levels. Children's bodies also heat up three to five times faster than adults and fail to cool down efficiently.

So far this year, 17 children have died in hot cars in 12 states, according to noheatstroke.org. The children were ages 22 months to 4-years-old.

Doctors say people should never leave a child in an unattended car for any length of time, even if a vehicle is parked in the shade or has a window rolled down.

They should also check their entire car, especially the back seat, before locking doors and walking away. They recommend people place an item like a purse in the backseat as reminder to look.

Another tip is to keep car doors locked and store keys and fobs out of a child's reach.

Since 1998, 161,000 children have died in hot cars and nearly 24% of those deaths happened after a child gained access to a car on their own. Doctors more than half of the children who died were forgotten by a caregiver.