President Bush Signs Schakowsky's Kids Transportation Safety Act into Law

PRESIDENT BUSH SIGNS SCHAKOWSKY'S KIDS TRANSPORTATION SAFETY ACT INTO LAW

Washington, D.C.–President Bush today signed Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's (D-IL) Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, H.R. 1216, into law. Schakowsky's law, which passed both the House and Senate unanimously, requires auto manufacturers to adopt simple, common-sense safety measures to decrease the number of deaths and injuries that have resulted from children being backed over, strangled by power windows or killed when they inadvertently shift a car into gear causing an accident.

"For many years, I have listened to parents relive the nightmare of backing over their children or finding them strangled by a power window. While nothing will ever take away their pain, this new law will ensure that no other family will ever have to go through what they have had to experience,... said U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). "This bill would have never become law without the advocacy of the victim's families and the bipartisan support of my colleagues in Congress. This new law pays tribute to the memory of thousands of children whose lives have been cut short by these horrific accidents....

The Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007 directs the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to issue the following regulations to decrease the incidence of child injury and death:

• Provide drivers with a means of detecting the presence of a person or object behind their vehicle;

• Provide for the vehicle service brake to be engaged to prevent vehicles from unintentionally rolling away;

• Requires the government to study making power windows automatically reverse direction when they detect an obstruction to prevent children from being trapped, injured or killed and to report back to Congress if they don't conclude that such a mandate is necessary; and

• Establish a child safety information program to collect non-traffic incident data and disseminate information to parents about these hazards and ways to mitigate them.