Personal Injury Law

Power Windows: Risk for Children?

By Beth Janicek

Since the introduction of power windows in the late 1950's and early 1960's, injuries and deaths have occurred due to safety hazards related to strangulation. The consumer group KidsandCars.org in Leawood, Kansas said in a press conference on November 2, 2009, that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is greatly underestimating the number of people injured or killed by power windows. They want the federal agency to require automakers to equip all power windows with an auto-reverse feature that would automatically stop and open if it encountered an obstruction while closing. However, the NHTSA says that several new safety requirements involving power windows show it is doing a good job tackling what it describes as 'a small, but persistent problem.'

Despite the discrepancy over specific numbers, the agency has recently required automakers to make power windows safer. Starting Oct. 1, 2008, all passenger vehicles required power switches that are recessed, and by Oct. 1, 2010, power windows may be closed only by pulling up on a switch. The Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2008 requires the agency to consider whether to require an auto-reverse feature on all power windows.

After looking at several alternatives the agency has concluded that auto-reverse is not needed on all power windows and that the earlier changes to the switches will eliminate '50 to 75 percent of all power window-related fatalities.' In its deliberations, that agency is focusing on two possibilities. First, require all one-touch windows to have auto-reverse, and second, require those one-touch windows to meet a tougher United States standard that would stop the window more quickly.

Full post as published by San Antonio Personal Injury Lawyer on November 09, 2009 (boomark / email).