Click Here to send a free e-mail to Congress supporting these safety measures
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Contact:
Sally Greenberg
(202) 462-6262
(Washington, D.C.) – Consumers Union is calling on Congress to include important child-car safety measures approved by the Senate in this year’s highway bill that will address the problems of child strangulations in power windows and backover deaths of children in vehicle blindspots.
“It’s frustrating when you have a technology that can save the lives of children and we don’t use it,” says Sally Greenberg, senior product safety counsel for Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports.
“The six children who died in the last two years from power windows should be alive today. We have the technology to keep kids from being strangled in power windows, so let’s use it. We have the technology to warn parents when their child has wandered in back of their car, into the often very large blind areas behind vehicles. Let’s use it,” Greenberg added.
S. 1072, approved by the Senate, would close the power window loophole that has caused child strangulations, evaluate backup warning devices to see which are most effective in detecting small children behind cars, and require the government to collect data on noncrash nontraffic incidents, something it doesn’t currently do.
However, the House of Representatives is considering killing these important car-child safety measures as it takes up the Highway Bill.
“More than 72 children were backed over and killed last year, and with vehicles getting larger and longer, it is becoming even more difficult for drivers to see small children behind their cars,” Greenberg said. “It’s time Congress addresses the very real problem caused by blindspots in vehicles and test backup warning devices to protect our children.”
To send a free e-mail to Congress asking your Representative to support these important safety measures in the Highway Bill, click here.