On the Signing of the Bill, Sen Ed Markey Tells CBS News Congressional Correspondent Kris Van Cleave: “CBS [News] and the Families Put the Spotlight on This Critical Issue – Now It’s Time for NHTSA to Respond”

A six-year CBS News investigation prompted an auto-safety reform that was included in the infrastructure bill President Biden signed Monday. CBS News exposed a federal safety standard created in 1967 that leaves vehicle front seats susceptible to collapsing in rear-end crashes. Under the new legislation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will have two years to upgrade the federal seat strength standard, in an effort to protect children sitting in the back seats of vehicles.

In 2015, CBS News did a story on 16-month-old Taylor Warner, who had just started walking, when a ride in the family minivan turned deadly. The Warners were rear-ended while at a stop sign. The force of the crash caused her father Andy’s seat to collapse backward, colliding with Taylor who was strapped in her car seat.

Watch and read more here: https://cbsn.ws/3FjQDTV

Twitter link: https://bit.ly/3Fk8bz7

Excerpts:

- On the signing of the bill, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA): “CBS [News] and the families put the spotlight on this critical issue. Now it’s time for NHTSA to respond. I am now going to apply the most pressure that is politically possible on NHTSA to act, and to act quickly, in order to give families, parents the assurance that they, and the front seats of the cars they’re in, aren’t going to be used as projectiles to kill their own children in the backseats.

- Liz Warner. mother of Taylor Warner: “When we spoke to you in 2015, we hadn’t really known where this was going to go. Just thinking every day I get in the car, what if this happens again? What if we lose another child until this can change?”

Follow CBS MORNINGS on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

* * *

Press Contacts: