Car Power Window Accidents - News Article Excerpts

May 25, 2005

Associated Press, "Advocates Push to Make Cars Safer for Kids"

          Child-safety advocates sought support for a bill that would require auto makers to install technology in vehicles to help prevent children from being accidentally strangled by power windows or backed over.
          Safety advocates say many vehicles, including sport-utility vehicles and trucks, have blind spots that can extend as much as 50 feet, making it difficult for drivers to see children who might crawl behind the bumper or in the path of a vehicle.
          "These are accidents that are preventable if we use the technology that is available," said Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.), who introduced the measure with Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.).
  

October 22, 2004

Detroit News, ""Groups advocate safer power windows; want tougher rule than proposal approved by feds"

          Major consumer groups Thursday asked federal regulators to reconsider and make tougher a regulation that would require safer power window designs.
          On Sept. 13, NHTSA issued new rules it said would lead to safer power window switches. Seven children have died this year after accidentally stepping on or leaning on "rocker" window switches.
          The 11 groups said the government did not go far enough with the new regulation by failing to require auto-reverse mechanisms like those featured on garage doors.
Similar power-window retractors are standard equipment on 80 percent of vehicles in Europe, the groups said. They estimated the technology would initially cost $50 per vehicle, and be reduced with mass production.
  

September 14, 2003

Detroit News, "Regulators order safer power window switches; New rules hope to end kids' deaths"

          Federal safety officials Monday announced new rules that will phase out common power window switches that have been linked to the deaths of eight children this year. The regulations, which take effect Oct. 1, 2008, call for automakers to replace power window switches with safer designs as car and light truck models are restyled or replaced, government officials said.
          "This regulation will prevent the tragedy of a child's head or limb being caught in a power window," said Dr. Jeffrey Runge, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA").
          Consumer and parent groups have pushed for the change for years. With the extended phase-in period, the cost to the auto industry - about $50 per vehicle - will be minimal, Runge said. The new requirements must be implemented by the 2009 model year, but most automakers already are adopting new switch designs.
 

September 13, 2003

USA Today, "Feds to require safer window controls"

          Federal auto safety regulators said Monday that safer power window switches will be required in all vehicles by 2008.
          The better switches, already on virtually all foreign vehicles and many U.S. cars and trucks, are more difficult to unintentionally activate. Consumer group Kids and Cars says at least 37 children have been killed when they pressed window switches while leaning out of vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is issuing the rule, and automakers say the numbers are lower.
          The rule will ban so-called rocker or toggle switches -- which make windows go up when they are depressed -- if they are located on or near armrests. The safer switches are either pulled up to make windows go up or recessed so they can't be pushed inadvertently.
 

August 4, 2004

Los Angeles Times, "Don't get burned by your tires this summer; Wear and improper inflation can lead to dangerous blowouts, especially when it's hot"

          Everything is ready for your end-of-summer family vacation. Or is it? There's one item that is easy to forget but could have some terrible consequences if neglected.
          Tire pressure. Driving on bald or under-inflated tires on hot summer days can lead to disaster, auto safety and tire experts warn. Underinflated tires fail because they overheat, which leads to the breakdown of the tire's internal structure.
          Improper inflation also can reduce your ability to control your vehicle. Dangerous tire blowouts occur more during summer months than at any other time of the year, safety advocates say. If you are traveling in an SUV or pickup truck, the risk can be even greater.
 

June 30, 2004

Los Angeles Times, "Power window reforms sought in wake of deaths"

          At least seven children nationwide have died since March 30 from strangulation or asphyxiation after their necks were caught by power windows. The rash of deaths has prompted safety advocates to increase pressure on Congress to enact measures that would require vehicles to have safer power-window switches. "We are devastated by these fatalities," says Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Cars, a consumer advocate group that has strenuously pushed for tougher vehicle safety. "Congress can stop children from being needlessly killed by dangerous power windows."
          The most recent incidents occurred June 5, when Yencey Ayala, 3, of Dallas was strangled in the window of a 2001 Ford F-250 truck. Her mother was sitting in the driver's seat next to her when the child may have accidentally activated the window with her knee or foot, according to the family's attorney. He said the child's mother tried to free her daughter by lowering the window, but had difficulty getting it to go down. On May 24, Hailee Chappell, 4, of Box Elder, S.D., was killed when her head got trapped by a power window. Her mother had left her and a younger sister alone for a few minutes. On April 7, a 6-year-old boy in Albion, Wis., was strangled in a car window when he and his three siblings were in the backseat of a 1996 Ford Taurus.
 

June 24, 2004

Washington Post, "Car Window Deaths Anger Safety Groups"

          At least seven children have died nationwide in the past three months by getting strangled in automobile power windows, prompting safety advocates to charge the auto industry and the government with dragging their feet in making relatively simple changes to reduce the danger.
          The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency responsible for monitoring auto safety, has no rules governing power window safety and no formal way of tracking such accidents despite examining the issue for several years. A spokesman said the agency plans to propose a rule requiring safer power windows in about a month, followed by a comment period and then a phase-in period for industry to comply.
          Until the recent unexplained surge in deaths, power windows were thought to be responsible for only about two to four child deaths per year, a small fraction of the 43,220 people killed annually in U.S. traffic accidents. But safety advocates say any such deaths are unnecessary because they are readily preventable. The problem is primarily with U.S.-made cars sold in the U.S. market, which traditionally have used "rocker" or toggle-style switches that can cause power windows to close inadvertently if someone leans on the switch.
 

June 16, 2004

Good Morning America, "One Wrong Move: Car Window Switches Can Be Deadly for Children"

          Matthew Chappell was serving in the Middle East with the U.S. Air Force when he got the bad news. His 4-year-old daughter was killed in an accident involving a car.
          But the May 24 accident in Box Elder, S.D., had nothing to do with a collision. Instead, Hailee Chappell was caught and killed in a power window.
          "It happened so fast and it's so silent that you don't know," said Jessica Chappell, the girl's mother. She says she had left Hailee and her little sister, Madison, in the car for just a few minutes and when she returned she thought Hailee was just playing.
          "The next thing I know I go outside and I see my daughter's hair blowing in the wind," Jessica Chappell said. "She had rolled her head up in the window."
          Theirs isn't the only sad story. In March, 3-year-old Rian Brandt was killed in Delphi, Ind., by a power window. In the last year, power windows have killed at least seven more children, including a 3-year-old Dallas girl on June 6 and a 4-year-old Wisconsin boy on June 2. The list goes on, and the details of each case are tragically similar.
          Since 1990, power windows have killed at least 36 children, according to Kids and Cars, a nonprofit group that tracks auto-safety issues involving children. A 1997 government study by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis estimated power windows sent nearly 500 people to emergency rooms in one year, and that half the victims were small children.
          Power windows are no longer a luxury option. They are equipped in 80 percent of all cars sold today. But certain power window designs have safety experts concerned they could pose a life-threatening hazard for children. Car makers say children should never be left alone in any vehicle, and certainly not one with the keys in the ignition.
 

June 16, 2004

The Auto Channel.com, "Brose North America Launches Power Window Consumer Awareness Campaign Educates public on importance of power window safety in vehicles"

          Brose North America, Inc., has launched a national consumer awareness advertising campaign and Web site (http://www.window-safety.com/ ) focused on power window safety. The "Do You Protect What You Value Most?" advertisements educate consumers on the potential dangers of power windows in vehicles, and inform them of anti-trap technology currently available in selected vehicles in North America.
          Vehicle power windows can cause harm to children by closing with enough force to cause broken arms or hands, and even lead to suffocation. Anti-trap technology can prevent such accidents by monitoring window speed and direction by utilizing an indirect detection system. If an object enters the path of the automatically closing window, the contact with the object triggers the motor to reverse the direction. Although this option is available, it is currently installed on less than 10 percent of automobiles in the United States.
          According to non-profit safety organization Kids and Cars, since 1990 at least 35 children have been killed and 500 people per year are treated in emergency rooms -- 50 percent of which are children -- when power windows have closed on them. The organization states that within the past 67 days, six children have been killed in the United States as a result of power window accidents.
 

June 16, 2004

Tampa Bay News 10, "Power Window Dangers"

          Bevin Maynard is the Children’s Safety Advocate at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa, and can demonstrate just how much power there is in a vehicle’s power window. She takes a pair of carrots, and flicks the power window up. Just as the windows hit the top, the carrots snap.
          And sometimes the outcome is fatal. On May 2, 1998, 2-year-old MacKenzie Dufresne was left alone in her mother’s car for just a few seconds. Her mother turned the key to auxiliary, so the toddler could listen to a Barney tape.
          The child apparently stepped on a toggle switch, and rolled the window up on her neck, strangling and killing her.
          Mary Kay Staver hopes her story will convince other parents to be extremely careful with toddlers in the car. Safety advocates warn never leave a child alone for even a split second.
 

November 9, 2003

Chicago Sun Times, "Power windows' deadly risk to kids"

          Mitchell Johnson was antsy, bored and feeling like he wanted to be just about anywhere but watching his little brother's school musical program. He'd seen the program once already, and being a typical 11-year-old, he just couldn't make it to the end.
          Wanting to stretch his legs, Mitchell asked his mom if he could grab his basketball out of the car. Once inside the family's 1998 Buick Regal, Mitchell apparently turned on the car radio and started eating sunflower seeds.
          But as he leaned out the front driver's side window -- possibly to spit out a sunflower seed shell--Mitchell apparently hit the power window switch. The window quickly rose, and within seconds it was closing around Mitchell's neck.
          Shortly after, the school musical ended and Mitchell's mom left the building with the other parents.
          She froze when she saw her car.
          There was her Mitchell, her first-born son, his head poking out the window and the glass closed around his neck, his body inside the car, motionless.
          Sheila Johnson frantically broke a back window and freed her son, but Mitchell couldn't be revived. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
          Mitchell's asphyxiation death last April in Danville, Ind., was one of the latest in a long string of fatal accidents linked to power windows.
          An automotive convenience that most people wouldn't consider dangerous, power windows have been blamed for at least 28 deaths since 1990, most of them children ages 3 and younger. Hundreds more are injured each year in power window accidents, including kids who have lost fingers or suffered crushed wrists or hands after the windows quickly zoomed up, exerting forces of up to 80 pounds in a matter of seconds, according to reports compiled by Kids and Cars, a Kansas-based advocacy organization.
          Now, a coalition of consumer groups is petitioning the federal government to strengthen the safety requirements for power windows on vehicles sold in the United States. They say many accidents could have been prevented by inexpensive safety features that are required by law on cars sold in Europe but left off many of the models sold in the United States.
 

August 19, 2003

USA Today, "Group seeks law on window switches"

          A child safety advocacy group on Monday will ask federal regulators to require safer power-window switches in cars and trucks. It's an effort mostly aimed at U.S. automakers.
          Kids and Cars, a Kansas-based organization, says that since 1990, at least 26 children have been killed and at least 26 injured when power windows closed on them.
          The problem is rocker or toggle switches that are pushed down to close a window. That means a child or a pet can easily activate the window by leaning on the switch. Newer, safer switches must be pulled up to raise the window.
          European countries require power window switches that must be pulled up to activate. Asian carmakers use pull-up switches, but U.S. automakers General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler Group still have a mix of the newer switches and the older rocker or toggle switches.
          Becky Hergatt, whose 5-year-old son was nearly choked to death by a power window in June, says she can't understand why automakers don't install the safer switches.
          "It's a hideous way for a child to die, and it's so preventable," says Hergatt, a Mansfield, Ohio, nurse and Buick Regal owner.
          GM, Chrysler and Ford say they are phasing in the new switches over the next several years although they won't commit to putting them in all future vehicles.
 

August 19, 2003

USA Today, "Driven to make cars safe for kids"

          After 17 years in sales and marketing for Kodak and personal care product-maker Helene Curtis, Janette Fennell knows how to sell. But she says she was a babe in the woods when she started trying to sell her brand of safety to Detroit automakers in the late '90s.
          Fennell, 49, wasn't driven to safety advocacy by the deep-seated distrust of big business that so many activists share. Instead, after she and her husband were carjacked, robbed and locked in the trunk of their car in 1995, Fennell embarked on a successful campaign to get trunk releases in cars.
          Today, she'll turn up the heat on Detroit and Washington again with a petition asking regulators to require safer power window switches in all cars. She wants all car companies to use switches that can't be activated by a child leaning on them, and she wants windows that reverse direction, like automatic garage doors, if they hit a person.
          "Our vehicles tell us if we've left our headlights on," Fennell says. "It's ludicrous that they are putting the blame on parents for things they can design out of vehicles."
 

April 8, 2004

Associated Press, "Wisconsin 6-Year-Old Dies In Car Window Accident"

          A 6-year-old Marshall, Wisconsin, boy died Wednesday after getting stuck in a car window and asphyxiated. The boy's mother and two other adults left four children, ages 2-6, alone in the car, which had an override window function enabled allowing operation only from the driver's seat. One of the children went into the driver's seat after the adults left, and closed a backseat window, trapping the 6-year-old by the neck, Dane County officials said.
          The children were eventually able to open the window and the boy fell into the backseat, where the adults found him unresponsive and took him into the resort where they called for help, officials said. The adults were gone for about 15 minutes, officials said. They were inside the resort applying for work.