[RahulNagaraj]

Janette Fennell has played an instrumental role in standardizing a number of safety features on cars, starting with the glow-in-the-dark emergency release lever inside the boot.



Back in 1995, Janette Fennell and her husband were kidnapped outside their home. The kidnappers, locked both of them in the boot of their Lexus sedan and drove away into the night. Janette and her husband, locked in the boot, frantically scrambled to find a way to escape, but to no avail.

Post the kidnapping, Fennell wondered why cars didn't come with a lever to open the boot from the inside, in case of any emergency. In the months that followed, Fennell wrote to every major car manufacturer enquiring about the lack of the emergency release in the boot. With no response from any brand, she soon realised that there wasn't any data for such incidents.



Fennell then decided to accumulate the data herself. Through a tedious process, she was soon able to find 931 similar cases from 20 years preceding her incident. From these cases, 1082 people were found to have been locked up in the boot of a car with no way of escape. Another shocking result found was that one in four cases reported victims dying of asphyxiation, heatstroke or hypothermia.

She further classified all her cases into two categories - kids accidentally locking themselves in the boot and kidnapped victims who were forced in.

Fennell also found that there had already been over two dozen petitions requesting the installation of emergency boot release levers. She also found that carmakers would need to spend around $0.20 - $4 to install these levers in their cars.



With all the data in hand, Fennell moved to Washington and in 1996, launched her own association - Trunk Releases Urgently Needed Coalition (TRUNC) and got her first break in 1997. Later in 1999, the NHTSA passed a mandate that all cars sold post-2002 will need to mandatorily come with the emergency boot release lever.



However, over the past 20 years, Fennell and her association have gone on and fought to pass legislation mandating multiple other safety features as well. These include safer power window switches, brake-shift interlock systems, seat belt reminders and rearview camera; all of which have now been mandated on cars.

Source: TheHustle

Link to Team-BHP news

[ruzbehxyz]

Excellent !

This is something great I have read in a long time. Hope that these features come to India and are made mandatory. There is no harm in having a lever in a boot.

[overtaker]

She might have saved thousands of lives by making those safety features mandatory. A very useful post in deed which shows how auto manufacturers were made to install these features.

[naveen.raju]

Well done!

And there are some manufacturers who add a divider in the front boot to avoid adding this emergency release (to bypass the mandatory regulation). .

[kkunal.shah]

Good read. Did not know that this feature addition had such a background & also goes on to reflect what perseverance can bring about.

[akshay4587]

I remember a Kidnapping story from Mid 2000's which it made it to the news in our sleepy little town, here it goes:

So, this guy from Delhi was kidnapped in his own Hyundai Accent and put into the boot, and was driven up north, back in those days, It would have taken them easily 3-4 hours to reach my town 200 kms north of Delhi; due to some need the kidnappers drove towards the market which is about 1km from NH-1.
While the car was parked, the kidnapped guy who had surprisingly survived until now managed push out one of the tail lights and extended his hand out of the gap, which was luckily noticed by one of the local shopkeepers and Kidnapping was foiled

That said; apart from internal fuel lid release, i don't think any of cars has an internal boot release.

[Fiestaboy]

Few Indian cars have this & I had seen it in person as well.

I believe Polo, Swift, WRV & few other Indian cars have.

Below is an example of Swift in Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-aqZEHdfWM

The same youtuber has put videos for Polo as well.

Though it is present in Indian cars, most of them are not aware of it.
What will make this feature useful is, giving a radiant sticker around the lever, which can glow in dark & enable the user to notify this feature even if they are not aware of it.

[AZT]

Great post. Seeing all these American shows with people being kidnapped in boots was not even aware this existed.

[TrackDay]

Informative article ! Never knew about this till now. I think the general public too are unaware that such an option exists. This can also be helpful in case of accidents/Floods etc. As shared before, they need to introduce a big glow in the dark sticker in the so called portion so that people can use it if they are caught up in such a situation. Another video I found from the same channel for the Honda WRV.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqvoJZ4pnKA

And the Polo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXQvwfLxj3A

Another useful one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09M3QxgM_Xo

[livetodrive]

Great initiative, absolutely splendid effort from the lady starting from data acquisition in the age of no internet to execution.

Just thinking if this feature is limited to sedans where the trunc is inaccessible from other passengers. In hatchback and our SUVs is this feature relevant?

[DicKy]

Remember seeing some US TV show in the early 2000s. They were like, "What to do if someone kidnaps you and locks you inside the boot. Or was it one of the 911 rescue shows? Or was it a movie? Not sure.

Thing was she opened the boot while the car was in motion using the emergency cord. The kidnapper noticed it, parked somewhere desolate, opened the boot and pulled off the emergency cord breaking it off. Slammed the boot and off he went again.

She kicked open one of the rear tailiights (was a late 90s Camry), and to help mark the route used a conveniently placed large tin of paint and poured it out slowly.