• The U.S. Senate passed a multi-year transportation bill on July 30 that included the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act introduced by U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara). “Enacting common-sense, life-saving legilslation will ensure that what happened to Raechel and Jacqueline Houck will never happen again,” Capps said in a press release. The legislation is named after two sisters from Ojai who were killed in 2004 while driving a Chrysler PT Cruiser rented from Enterprise. The car was under recall but never repaired. The Safe Rental Car Act would require rental car companies to ground recalled vehicles and prohibit them from being rented or sold until the repairs are made. The House of Representatives has yet to vote on the transportation bill.
This article appears in Aug 6-13, 2015.