Child-safe car windows: new initiatives may bring better designs.(Upfront: news / trends / advice)

Cars can be dangerous places for kids. This year alone, at least 19 children left in hot cars have died, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and backovers have killed more than 40.

A smaller but potent threat is strangulation from power windows. At least seven children have died that way this year, according to the advocacy organization Kids and Cars. Despite more than a decade of such accidents, some automakers continue to build cars with power-window switches that have some inherent safety shortcomings. Congress is only now considering legislation that would foster safer designs.

The Safe and Flexible Transportation Efficiency Act of 2004, or SAFETEA was with a House-Senate conference committee as this issue went to press. The Senate's version of the bill would require, among other things, that the government issue standards for child-safe windows.

Most of the deaths blamed on power windows occurred when a child leaned out the window, inadvertently pushed on the switch, and raised the window.

Two types of switches are inherently riskier than others if they are mounted horizontally on the door's armrest: Rocker switches move the glass up when you press one end of the switch. Toggle switches work when pushed forward or pulled back. A third type, lever switches, are safer because they must be pulled up to raise the glass.

Janette Fennell, president of Kids and Cars, says that European regulations requiring switch designs and locations to ...