WASHINGTON, D.C. – Only power windows with express-up designs would have to be equipped with an auto-reverse feature, and all vehicles will have to install a brake to shift interlock, under two notices of proposed rulemaking published in the last month.

NHTSA proposed these rules to satisfy two mandates contained within the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act. The bill was named after 2-year-old Cameron Gulbransen, who was killed when his father, a pediatrician from Long Island, inadvertently backed over him, because the blind-zone behind his SUV made it impossible to see the toddler. The legislation required NHTSA to – for the first time – develop a rearward visibility standard, mandate a brake-to-shift-interlock and require power windows to have an automatic reverse feature.

Longtime NHTSA activist Janette Fennell, founder of Kids and Cars, is vowing to fight the agency’s weak power window proposal.

“This is an issue people have been working on since the advent of power windows, back in the 60s,” she says. “There’s plenty of research and understanding that power windows exert so much force when they are going up that they can injure, maim and kill. But there’s just been terrible resistance to prevent that from happening. There have been numerous petitions and numerous people bringing this to auto manufacturers and NHTSA, and it just keeps coming back: Not enough people die to make this change. This is the farthest we’ve ever gotten and I’m not giving up. We can’t let this opportunity slip through our fingers.”

The agency has been working to satisfy the mandates of the Gulbransen bill since March, when NHTSA published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for a rearward visibility standard that would expand the required field of view to enable drivers to detect areas behind the motor vehicle.

In August, the agency followed up with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to require a brake-to-shift-interlock be installed in all automatic transmission vehicles manufactured for sale after September 2010. This aspect of the Gulbransen Act was the lowest hanging fruit for the agency, since in August in 2006, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers reached a voluntary agreement which required full implementation of BTSI not later than September 1, 2010.  Consumer advocates continued to lobby for a regulation that would cover all vehicles sold in the U.S. – not just those from the major automakers. They also wanted a rule that would require the brake-to-shift interlock to work when the key was in any position – including the accessory position – that could start the vehicle – an important omission of the voluntary agreement.

NHTSA’s proposed rule would require that the service brake pedal be depressed before the transmission can be shifted out of ‘‘park,’’ and would function in any starting system key position. Like the voluntary agreement, automakers would be required to install them on vehicles manufactured for sale after September 1, 2010.

The Gulbransen Safety Act gave the agency a lot more leeway in the power window rulemaking. NHTSA has taken a half step – proposing a rule that only requires an auto-reverse system (ARS) for power windows with an express button – meaning those that close with one touch of the button. NHTSA said that mandating ARS on all windows was unnecessary because the majority of the safety problem was addressed by the new ‘‘safer switch’’ requirements. While auto-reverse might prevent these myriad minor injuries, the agency said that the K.T. Safety Act’s purpose was to prevent deaths and serious injuries to children, so it focused its safety analysis on the most grievous cases of power window entrapment.

Fennell argued that switch design is only part of the problem. Although there have been cases in which a child kneeling on a rocker switch activated the window, there have been just as many cases when someone else in the car was activating the window. Fennell maintains that the agency’s data collection efforts are not vigorous enough and that the agency tends to artificially reduce the scope of the safety problem by automatically throwing out any instance in which the way the window was activated was inconclusive. Further, she says all of the vehicles with one-touch power window closure already have an auto-reverse feature, so no car maker is actually affected by the proposal.

“NHTSA is supposed to be a safety agency. The proposed rule does nothing to reduce one injury or one death. Why do all vehicles in Europe have auto-reverse? Because it’s safe. I’m not happy with this. They’ve really done nothing.”