Seven children have been killed by power windows in the past three months, prompting safety advocates to demand government and industry action. The number of deaths is an increase from the two to four deaths per year reported in the past several years. Most of these deaths are caused by strangulation when a child accidentally trips the power window button and is caught in the rising window. There are two known and fairly economical solutions for car manufacturers to make the windows safer. Auto-reverse windows, which are standard in 80% of cars in Europe, automatically reverse when they hit a barrier. Some American cars, such as the Ford Focus, come standard with auto-reverse windows in Europe but have no auto-reverse feature in the United States. Even without auto-reverse windows, relatively simple changes can be made to increase the safety of power lock doors. Power windows in most American-manufactured cars are controlled by simple toggle buttons that can easily be triggered accidentally. By contrast, most foreign-manufactured cars control power windows with buttons that require a person to lift up on the button to raise the window, making it much more difficult to accidentally trigger the button. Safety advocates have used the recent rise in power window-related fatalities to call upon the industry and government to make these relatively inexpensive changes. The Senate highway authorization bill does call on industry to make power windows safer and creates a government database to track power-window-related fatalities. The bill is now in conference with the House highway authorization bill, which does not contain such a provision. According to Kids and Cars, the leading advocacy group tracking the power window issue, the legislative push is long overdue. The group has been petitioning the government since 1995 to require higher safety standards for car power windows, which are already regulated by many foreign governments. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration rule that would regulate power windows was based on a petition filed in 1996. Kids and Cars filed a second petition with NHTSA last year. Based on a poll of over 1,000 adults conducted by Harris Interactive, 84 percent of Americans believe automakers should take the known steps to install safer power windows. Industry representatives say the auto industry is already working to phase out the toggle buttons. "But bear in mind," Eron Shosteck, spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers told the Washington Post, "there's always a phase-in. You're always going to see it take time to penetrate the entire fleet." Though automakers believe that parents are also responsible for children's deaths due to power windows, the Harris poll also showed that most Americans don't even realize the potential dangers of power windows. Over one million vehicles with unsafe power windows will be put in the marketplace by the sales of these two vehicles this year. Read the Kids and Cars Press Release.