Car Safety Group Calls On GM to Equip Older Cars with Interior Trunk Releases

A national car and children’s safety organization is again calling on General Motors to recall its 2000 and 2001 model year vehicles and retrofit them with internal trunk releases.

KidsAndCars.org repeated its request following the June 17 deaths of two young Indiana boys trapped in the trunk of a Chevy Malibu.

The organization, whose efforts helped lead to a federal regulation requiring glow-in-the-dark trunk releases in all vehicles manufactured since 2002, first asked GM to retrofit its vehicles after two Arkansas children died in a car trunk in 2009.

According to the New York Times, GM responded to KidsAndCars.org by citing its work with Safe Kids Worldwide, an international child safety organization, and stating that it has provided interior trunk releases in all its passenger vehicles since 2001.

KidsAndCars.org recommends that owners of older cars equip their vehicles with aftermarket interior trunk releases. The organization sells a retrofit kit called the Quick-Out Emergency Trunk Release.