Yes, but in the case of backseat roasting babies, it isn't the parent that pays the price. It's a defenseless infant. Should a warning system fail and a child die despite the system, sure - I fully expect the carmaker will face liability. But that parent won't be any less guilty of forgetting their kid in the back of the car.
Yes, but can any of those "more pressing public safety and health matters" be impacted by Ford engineers putting a chime and a light on a dashboard? And even if they can, it's not as if this effort is taking away any energy from resolving all the other issues - it isn't a zero-sum equation. It's not as if every engineer at Ford is working on this project, nor would all the engineers at Ford be spending their energy searching for a cure for breast cancer if they weren't frittering away their time improving child safety systems. Humans can solve more than one problem at a time.
Again, can Ford have an impact on any of those other poor parenting practices? They identified this one as an issue they could possibly make a dent in. Should they instead say, "any idiot who leaves their kid in a hot car is probably going to kill that kid one way or another eventually, so let's pass on trying to save those 38 kids a year"?
The cynic in me makes me think this new system has less to do with actually saving kids than it has to do with appealing to parents and making a new vehicle family friendly. How many grandparents will loan their millennial children money for a downpayment on a new car, and will safety features like this influence financial decisions at that level?
Yes, I'll be somewhat annoyed if the thing regularly falses. So does the "key not detected" double-tap on the horn probably one in five times my passenger gets out of the car before I do (the key virtually lives in my pocket). I roll my eyes and move on, because I assign priorities to what I allow myself to be triggered by.
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