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November 15, 2005
RULEMAKING, SENATE BILL AIM TO CUT CHILD INJURIES
Legislation introduced by Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John Sununu (R-NH) and a current NHTSA rulemaking proposal both are meant to reduce deaths of pedestrian children from vehicle impacts. According the bill’s sponsors and supporters, the legislation would direct the Secretary of Transportation to issue regulations to ensure that power windows automatically reverse direction when they detect an obstruction to prevent children from being trapped, injured or killed, to provide drivers with a means of detecting the presence of a person or object behind their vehicle, and to provide for the vehicle service brake to be engaged to prevent vehicles from unintentionally rolling away. The bill would also establish a child safety information program to collect non-traffic, non-crash incident data and disseminate information to parents about these hazards and ways to mitigate them. For details see http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=248015&& The NHTSA rulemaking proposal for application to straight trucks is intended to “alert drivers to persons and objects directly behind the vehicle, thereby reducing backing-related deaths and injuries” through installation either of mirror systems or rear video systems. Children are “the primary focus” of the proposal, according to NHTSA. About 100 children are killed annually in vehicle-backing incidents, and the Centers for Disease Control has estimated that nearly 7,500 children aged one to fourteen years old were treated in U.S. hospitals for nonfatal vehicle-backing injuries between 2001 and 2003. A Consumers Union fact sheet provides additional data and describes alternative technologies for reducing vehicle-backing injuries by motor vehicles of various kinds. NHTSA’s current proposal would not cover SUVs, which are implicated in such injuries to children.Posted by MVHAP at November 15, 2005 10:47 AM
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