GM Safety Tour Featuring Latest In Crash-Avoiding Automotive Technology Visits Charlotte May 8-9

Safe Kids Offers Tips On Keeping Children Safe In And Around Cars

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Automotive technology that can help avoid crashes, the crash-test dummies that take hits to make cars safer, and satellite communications that can get help to a crash scene faster, are among the features of the GM Continuous Safety Tour that visits the Charlotte Merchandise Mart on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

The 10-city U.S. tour, which opens here, is also aimed at helping educate parents and caregivers about some of the non-traffic risks young children face in and around cars – especially the danger of heat stroke when left unattended in a vehicle.

From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day, GM and TRW Automotive safety experts will give ride-and-drives of StabiliTrak electronic stability control in the first full-size passenger van to feature the technology, now federally mandated to be in all new light vehicles by 2012.

Tour displays also feature:

* Crash-test dummies from the 1940s, when the Air Force tested early models by tossing them out of airplanes, to today’s Hybrid III dummies with integrated data collection abilities.

* OnStar’s Advanced Automatic Crash Notification, which provides information that can help reduce the times needed to notify emergency rescue, for EMS to reach the crash site, and for the crash victim to reach the hospital.

“GM is implementing automotive technology that’s been proved to help save lives,” said Bob Lange, GM executive director of Structure and Safety Integration, who will be at the Merchandise Mart on Tuesday. “We are committed to making our vehicles and roads safer for all passengers.”

Safe Kids Worldwide will be on hand to answer questions about vehicle safety and protecting children through age-appropriate restraints as well as demonstrating practical ways parents and caregivers can help prevent accidentally backing over a child.

One especially timely exhibit will demonstrate how the temperature rises drastically inside a closed vehicle – as much as 19 degrees in just 10 minutes. At least 13 North Carolina children, including three in Forest City last November, have died from hyperthermia since 1998 after being left unattended in vehicles.