Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates) sent the message below to Congress on August 8, 2021:
Jamie Dill & Andrew Dill, PhD (Evansville, IN) lost their 3-year-old son Oliver “Ollie” Dill in a hot car on July 9, 2019: “It is impossible to describe the horror of seeing your child – the object of your highest unconditional love – dead, because you forgot him in a car on a hot day. We had heard about parents unknowingly leaving their children in cars, but never thought it would happen to us. Education and awareness are not enough. It has been said that the moral measure of a society is how well it treats our most vulnerable populations. We the people are trusting our elected officials to help our children, our future. Pass the Hot Cars Act as part of transportation and infrastructure legislation.”
WATCH THE DILLS TELL THEIR STORY
What Jamie & Andrew Ask 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.
• Technology differences matter. This 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.
More than 1,000 children like Ollie have died in hot cars since 1990. The conditions that lead to these preventable tragedies, including change of routine, stress, sleep deprivation are commonly experienced among parents and other caregivers. Congress must protect our most vulnerable passengers by advancing requirements for this urgently needed safety upgrade as part of transportation and infrastructure legislation.