Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates) sent the following message to Congress on July 27, 2021:
Please take 2 minutes to read this message from Norm Collins Sr., PhD (North Carolina), Kids and Car Safety Family Advocate, Grandfather of 3-month-old Norman Collins III (Mississippi): “I received a phone call from a church friend who informed me that I needed to come to Clarksdale, Mississippi, right away because something had happened to my 3-month-old grandson, Norman Collins III who was affectionately known as ‘Bishop.’ I later learned that Bishop was dead, the victim of heatstroke after being unknowingly left in his parents’ hot car in a church parking lot on a 93-degree Sunday afternoon, due to a miscommunication. Available technology called for in the Hot Cars Act would have saved his little life and so many others. The need to pass this life-saving legislation is urgent. Children’s lives depend on it. Please help us to turn our pain into power, our tragedy into triumph, and our agony into positive action.”
What Norm Asks You To Do:
Congress must take action now in the infrastructure/transportation bill to end ‘hot car’ deaths and injuries.
- Hot car incidents can be prevented with detection and alert systems. These inexpensive safety systems are currently available and should be required in all new passenger vehicles.
- 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.
Cars already have reminders for headlights left on, gas is running low, and doors ajar, etc. A system to detect and alert about our most precious passengers is long overdue. In honor and memory of the more than 1,000 children like Norman Collins III who have tragically died in hot cars since 1990, this safety advance must be included in this bill.