Burned to death
Jenelle Embrey via Change.org
Last fall I was out for a drive with my dad when we hit a sudden traffic jam. A tractor trailer couldn't stop in time, so it hit a bunch of cars from behind. We spun into a guardrail, but we were okay. We got out of the car to see that another family had survived, but their car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, was on fire.
My dad tried to help them out of the car, but he was only able to save one of the teenage boys. The other boy and the mom were trapped, and burned to death. It was the most awful thing I have ever seen.
Jeep knows the fuel tank on Grand Cherokees is in the "crush zone," which means the car is likely to catch on fire in an accident. Only 27 people ever died in Ford Pinto fires, but the Jeep Grand Cherokee number is 287 and rising. So why are these cars still on the road?
After the accident, I spent months grieving. I couldn't get that family out of my head. Not only watching this mother and teenager burn to death, but watching her 18-year-old son watching it happen. Watching him cry, "Mom, Mom." I'm a single mom with two teenaged boys, too, so that really hit home. When that boy was crying for his mother, he sounded like my boys.
The scariest part is this doesn't just affect people who drive Jeeps -- if you rear-end a Jeep Grand Cherokee in a collision, your car could catch on fire, too.
I've seen lots of Change.org petitions have success before, and I really hope mine will be one of them. The Department of Transportation and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are supposed to keep Americans safe. I hope that if enough people sign my petition, they'll do the right thing and protect our safety over Chrysler's bottom line.
Thank you,
Jenelle Embrey
Linden, Virginia
mail@change.org