Major automakers have come to an agreement of starting installing a system in all U.S. vehicles from model year 2025, which will remind the driver about the passengers at the rear seat, a move to avoid incidents of death of children when motorist left them behind hot cars.
The announcement of the automakers on what they are calling rear seat reminder system came at a time when the issue is under discussion at the U.S. Congress and it has been considering making it compulsory in new cars.
Lawmakers were discussing that in the United States over the last two decades, more than 800 children lost their lives because of heatstroke when they were left behind in parked vehicles. And last year alone remained most fatal during that time period when 53 children died for the same reason.
The 20 automaker who took part in the talks were representing nearly 98% of all vehicle sales in the United States and they promised to equip their vehicles with audio and video alert systems from model year 2025 or next year in case of vehicle redesigning would be the requirement.
Ford Motor Co, General Motor Co, Hyundai Motor Co, Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co Ltd and Volkswagen AG were the major player among the participating automakers.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, though committed to eventual adaptation of the reminder system in its all vehicles worldwide but said that the timing to begin with that vary from region to region, while Hyundai in July said that it would adopt the reminder technology as an standard in most of its vehicles in the United States by 2022.
GM, in some of its U.S. vehicles, already has such a system since 2016 which provide the motorist with an audio alert and a visual reminder on dashboard of the vehicle to check for a child at rear seat before exiting the vehicle.
