Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates) sent the message below to Congress on August 4, 2021:
Lindsey Rogers-Seitz (North Carolina), Kids and Car Safety Family Advocate: “It has been seven years since my precious son Benjamin passed away in our family vehicle after a change in routine caused my husband to forget that he had not dropped him off at daycare. Families do not move on from tragedies like this, and perhaps the most tragic thing of all is that these hot car incidents are preventable with the right kind of technology. Car manufacturers have been aware of this problem for decades. We need the U.S. Senate to follow the lead of the House and include the Hot Cars Act in transportation and infrastructure legislation.”
Pictured: Benjamin Seitz
What Lindsey Asks You To Do:
Congress must take action now in the infrastructure/transportation bill to prevent hot car injuries and fatalities.
- Hot car deaths and injuries can be prevented with detection and alert systems.
- Inexpensive safety systems to end these incidents are currently available and should be required in all new passenger vehicles because no one thinks they will forget their child or that their child will climb into an unoccupied car.
- Any legislation must require that the system detects and alerts to the presence of an occupant in the entire passenger compartment. This is vital to ensure that children who access a vehicle on their own, as well as children who are unknowingly left in a vehicle, are saved.
Change of routine, stress, sleep deprivation or other common scenarios parents & caregivers experience every day can needlessly end in tragedy, yet technology can prevent this. In honor and memory of the more than 1,000 children like Benjamin who have died in hot cars since 1990, this safety upgrade must be included in the bill.