The late July car accident in which a mother with five children in her car drove almost two miles the wrong way down a major highway before hitting an SUV head-on, killing the three men in the SUV, herself, and four of the children in her own car, drew headlines not only because of the horrific loss of life, but also because four small children died. Parents all over the country wondered how a mother entrusted not only with her two children but also her three nieces could have made such an enormous driving error. Going the wrong way down a ramp in foggy weather might be understandable, but driving that distance midday on a clear day, with dozens of cars coming toward her, meant that there was an enormous problem with her judgment.

Her husband and other family members insist that she had a medical condition which caused her mental confusion, but autopsy and toxicology results revealed that she was apparently both drunk and high. Friends and family alike deny any known history of drug or alcohol abuse. It sounds as if she was indeed the perfect mother, the kind of person that any one would trust to watch or drive their child. That’s exactly what strikes terror in the hearts of all parents: If it could happen to the Schuler family, then maybe it means that it could have happened to any of us.

Yet cell phone records now reveal that one of her nieces called her father and reported that her aunt was acting strangely. It is so sad that her niece didn’t demand that her aunt stop driving and let the children out of the car. In a similar case in Massachusetts last year, an aunt who was later reported to have bipolar disorder picked up her young niece and nephew from their parents’ house for an overnight, drove onto a major highway, pulled to the side of the road, took off all their clothes, then took the children’s hands and walked in front of oncoming traffic, killing all three.

Is there something we can teach our children to help them recognize when they are in danger?

I remember before I had my first child I read every parenting magazine I could get my hands on, including one article focused on play-date safety. Along with the routine questions about food allergies and dog fears, readers were advised to ask the host parents if they had any firearms in the house and, if so, were they appropriately locked up. Fast forward a few years when my daughter Sarah was invited on her first play-date. I remember looking at the phone receiver, wondering how I could possibly ask such a question. It felt too socially awkward. So I didn’t ask. Yet last year when we invited a friend of my younger daughter’s to our home, the pediatrician mom asked the question and it felt very natural. So the lesson I learned was that although something might sound socially awkward, one has to risk it if the issue is important enough.

I truly trust the judgment of my two daughters, ages 13 and 8. And I believe that the vast majority of children have excellent intuition. So I believe that we need to reinforce with our children that they need to trust their gut feeling, no matter the potential for social awkwardness. Diane Schuler clearly fooled the adults in her life. But she might not have fooled the children.

It makes sense to us all to teach our children to not accept rides from strangers, to scream if someone approaches them or tries to grab them, and to tell an adult if something has been done to them which made them feel uncomfortable. But we need to add something to this list: We need to tell our children that they are never to get in the car when they feel that the driver is not acting normally. And if they are in a car and the driver is not driving in a safe manner, they are to do anything possible to get the driver to pull over, even if it means lying and saying they need to throw up or go to the bathroom urgently. They can even take the driver’s cell phone and call 911 if they feel their life is in danger.

I would bet that the authorities would far rather get a few overanxious kids calling 911 for no reason than to ever have to approach a burnt out minivan containing four dead children.