Trunk Safety Devices Will Go in U.S. Cars
WASHINGTON — Spurred in part by the findings of a federal safety panel, U.S. car manufacturers will install emergency trunk release mechanisms as standard features on their new cars as early as this summer.
General Motors and DaimlerChrysler Corp. both made announcements Tuesday, the same day that a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration panel released a report recommending that the government require all cars sold after 2001 to include internal trunk release devices. Ford had announced in March that it would introduce trunk safety releases on its cars. The first new vehicles including the devices will be in showrooms in a few weeks.
A grass-roots campaign to require installation of the safety feature won national attention last summer when 11 children in three states accidentally locked themselves in car trunks and died in oven-like conditions, which can reach 170 degrees Fahrenheit.
General Motors’ Automatic Trunk Detection and Opener System--the most technologically advanced opening mechanism--will detect movement and heat in a parked car’s trunk and automatically open it, the company said. The system will be made standard on model year 2000 Chevrolet Impalas and will be installed subsequently on other GM cars, with the devices installed in all new models by 2002.
GM, like many other automobile manufacturers, now offers a retrofit trunk opener kit that can be installed on cars already on the road. The kit sells for about $50, company officials said.
Ford’s trunk escape mechanism--a latch that glows in the dark--will become a standard feature on its new cars in the next few weeks. DaimlerChrysler’s mechanism is expected to be included in new models in late September. Susan Cischke, vice president of safety affairs for Chrysler, said that consumers will not see much of an increase in sticker prices. Ford and GM also said that their price tags would not be affected much.
The safety agency named the panel to look into trunk safety in the wake of the last summer’s deaths.
The panel used data collected by one of its members, Janette Fennell, a Bay Area woman who was forced at gunpoint with her husband into the trunk of their car during a carjacking. According to her records, more than 260 people have died in incidents of trunk entrapment since 1970.
“There have been almost 1,200 victims that I have uncovered,” she said at a news conference Tuesday. “Again, you could probably multiply that by 10 to get a real number.”
The panel also recommended creation of a national data collection system on trunk entrapment incidents and education geared at adults and children.
The transportation safety agency must decide what to do about the panel’s findings. If it endorses the findings, all auto makers would be required to follow the lead of the Big Three and implement their own safety measures. Other auto makers, such as Nissan, BMW and Mitsubishi, have made retrofit kits available for their cars and are studying whether to make safety latches standard.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said that he is prepared to submit legislation to Congress if the transportation safety agency does not implement the panel’s recommendations.
