SENATOR CLINTON, CONGRESSMAN KING, CONSUMERS UNION, AND KIDS AND CARS TO HIGHLIGHT NEED TO PROTECT CHILDREN IN AND AROUND VEHICLES

Parents who have lost children and child safety advocates to call for enactment of federal legislation that would save lives and prevent countless injuries to children by improving safety features of vehicles.

On Monday, October 31, 2005, at 1:00 pm at the Long Island Children’s Museum in Garden City, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Representative Peter King will join with Consumers Union, Kids And Cars and parents of children killed in non-traffic automobile incidents at a news conference to highlight the need to improve child safety protections in vehicles.  Senator Clinton will announce that she is introducing bipartisan legislation in the Senate to improve the child safety features in new vehicles.  Representative King has introduced a similar bill in the House. 
 
The press conference will include a technology demonstration, including at least 20 children to show how large the blind zone is behind vehicles and to highlight existing technology that is readily available to prevent these kinds of tragic incidents from occurring.

In 2004 alone, more than 100 children were backed over and killed, many by parents or family members in their own driveways.  Already in 2005, at least 190 children have been killed in non-traffic car incidents.  The technology exists to protect families and children from these tragedies, but currently neither Congress nor the National Highway Traffic Safety Association requires the technology be installed. Such technology is only available on a select few vehicles, or as an after-market product consumers have to purchase themselves.

Senator Clinton and Representative King are sponsoring the “Cameron Gulbransen Kids And Cars Safety Act of 2005” to address issues surrounding vehicles and child safety, such as children being backed over, strangled by power windows or killed by inadvertently knocking a vehicle into motion.

At the press conference, Senator Clinton and Representative King will be joined by Janette Fennell, founder of Kids And Cars, an organization dedicated to improving the safety of children in and around parked vehicles, David Champion of Consumers Union and Jamie Schaeffer-Wilson, Westchester mom, author of The Baby Rules – The Insider’s Guide to Raising Your Parents and iVillage columnist. They will also be joined by several Long Island parents and others whose children have been killed in such tragic incidents, who will tell their stories in the hope of preventing this from happening to other families and getting the federal legislation enacted .

WHEN:          1:00 PM
Monday October 31, 2005
WHERE:        Long Island Children's Museum
11 Davis Avenue
Garden City, NY