Power windows in the spotlight after two-year-old dies in tragic accident

Following the accidental death of a two-year-old girl in Tokyo’s Nerima district on May 21, motorists are advised to be aware of the potential dangers that power windows pose to young children.

A woman in her thirties was driving when she noticed that her daughter, who was sitting in a child seat behind her, had her neck trapped in the window.

She called police around 10:50 a.m. Her daughter was unconscious when taken to a hospital and was pronounced dead about an hour later.

The Metropolitan Police Department suspects that the mother accidentally closed the window by pressing a switch on the driver’s seat.

The mother said she opened all four windows to ventilate when she left her house, investigators said.

She told police she believed she later closed all three windows except the one next to her daughter.

She also said her daughter was not buckled in the car seat.

According to the Consumer Protection Agency and other sources, since September 2009, more than 10 cases of injuries to the neck, face, fingers and other body parts caused by power windows have been reported in the past 15 years.

In one case, a small child’s finger was severed while another child was playing with the power window switch. Both children were between 1 and 4 years old.

A test conducted by the Japan Automobile Federation in 2017 found that an adult man in his 50s could barely stop a closing electric window with one hand.

A woman in her 30s failed to stop the window with one hand, but managed to do so when she used both hands. An 8-year-old boy could not even stop the window with both hands.

In another testa daikon radish and a burdock were both cut in half by a closing electric window.

While some power windows are designed to stop raising when something is caught in them, another experiment showed that this safety feature doesn’t work when the windows are almost closed.

To prevent accidents, it is important that drivers properly restrain children in child seats and use window locks to prevent children from opening or closing windows, according to a JAF official.

“When the driver closes the front passenger or rear seat windows, he or she should fully check the safety of the passengers and warn them,” the official said.

(This article was written by Arata Mitsui and Minami Endo.)