Consumer Reports' Consumers Union has joined in a lawsuit filed by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Kids and Cars, Greg Gulbransen, M.D., and Susan Auriemma against the US Department of Transportation, over the department's failure to implement a rule mandating backup cameras in new cars and trucks.
As part of 2008's Cameraon Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act, the DOT was ordered, by law, to come up with rear-visibility standards for new vehicles. In 2010, the DOT proposed mandating backup cameras, but since that proposal, the effort has stalled, with the original 2011 deadline pushed back multiple times. The current due date for a ruling is now 2015. Greg Gulbransen, one of the plaintiffs, who ran over and killed his two-year-old son, Cameron, told Consumer Reports, "It's mindboggling that two more children like Cameron are killed every week, yet the administration is content to postpone doing anything about it. This isn't some technical abstraction, it's about actual people being injured and killed."
The suit seeks to force the DOT to issue an immediate ruling that can be implemented before the 2015 deadline, which according to Consumers Union, would prevent up to 95 to 112 deaths per year.
