Car repair question

[Jim Joyce]

IIRC, that was mandated in 2001, effective in 2002, for all vehicles with a trunk. It gives people (kids) who are hiding in the trunk, as well as kidnap victims, a chance to escape.

[micky]

That sounds right. I wonder how long the handle will glow. Don't they have to get sunlight, or some kind of light, for a while first, and almost nothing is dark more than the trunk.

Still, if you know it should be there, you should be able to find it.

[philo]

Seems like a good idea

[philo]

If one was put in the trunk, it would have been opened to expose it to light. Even at night, there is a light inside the trunk. My guess is that it would glow for at least 24 hours...

[micky]

handle is quick-charging—it needs only 10 seconds of garage light to glow visibly inside the closed trunk. The glow was said to be very long-lasting (up to 8 hours when fully charged).

--So this sure supports what you said, although I don't think 10 seconds will "fully" charge it.

was mandated on September 1, 2001 by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) after years of lobbying that gained a vocal advocate in a woman who’d been kidnapped: Janette Fennell, of San Francisco..... This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content

Fennell and her husband were kidnapped in their own garage on October

29, 1995, and stuffed in the trunk of their Lexus. Their infant son was still in his safety seat in the backseat of the car, though he was later recovered unharmed. The kidnappers headed out with the Fennells trapped in their own trunk, not sure where they were going nor what was going to happen to them.

“…Janette started pulling on the carpeting in the trunk. She didn’t know why, exactly. But she was able to expose a bunch of wires, and she was pulling at them. [S]he thought that if she could make the lights flicker or flash, maybe someone would see it, maybe they would call 911, maybe the car would be pulled over…” according toAtlas Obscura.

After leaving paved roads behind, the kidnappers eventually pulled over, demanded cash, jewellery, bank cards, and PINs, and closed them back in the trunk, abandoning the couple. It was then that Fennell spotted a gap of light in the wires she’d exposed — the trunk release cable, wired to the activation button on the dashboard.

The NHTSA had been petitioned as far back as 1984 about the need for a release switch to be incorporated into the trunks of passenger cars, stating ”that persons such as alarm and stereo installers, mechanics, playful children, pranksters, and crime victims may be trapped in the trunk. The petitioner also believed an elderly person might fall into the trunk and thereby become entrapped.” At the time, the agency declared the chances remote that such entrapments would be likely.

From 1984 to 1998, the agency would receive two dozen more requests for action. In 1998, The National Safe Kids Campaign was asked by NHTSA to form a task forceto investigate the matter, no doubt compelled by the tragic deaths of 11 children in three separate occurrences within three weeks of each other in July and August of 1998. Children dying trapped in hot trunks was not a new phenomenon, but it was definitely one the auto industry could address.

“What often happens in these accidents is that a child, perhaps exploring or playing hide-and-seek, pushes down the back seat until it lies flat, creating a passageway into the trunk. After crawling through, the child kicks the seat back upright and unwittingly gets locked inside,” according to a FairWarning piece. Many could only imagine a child pulling a trunk lid closed, not realizing this is the more likely way they could become trapped.

[philo]

Thanks for the info