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MultiVu Video Feed - Senior Lawmakers Press For Legislation to Disclose Totaled and Flooded Vehicles to Public

NEW YORK, February 22 -- Each year more than 5 million vehicles are "totaled" by insurance companies. Unfortunately, thousands of these vehicles are sold each year at salvage auctions, rebuilt and re-enter the market with clean titles, so consumers, wholesale auto auctions and dealers may have no way to learn about the total loss.

Senior lawmakers, led by Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) have introduced legislation to ensure that totaled and flood-damaged vehicles—"Katrina cars" for instance--are permanently "red-flagged" so that used car buyers--consumers and auto retailers--can make more informed decisions about the safety and fair market value of a used vehicle. The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) and a coalition comprised of automakers, service organizations and others, have been working to build bipartisan support for legislation requiring insurers to make total-loss data available to the public.

Insurance companies already collect total-loss disclosure information, but do not provide this valuable information to consumers. This information, plus the reason for the total loss (flood, collision, stolen, etc.), the date of total loss, the odometer reading on that date, and whether or not the airbag deployed, could be easily disseminated through vehicle history providers. This total-loss information would make vehicle history reports more timely and complete. For more information, please visit: http://www.nada.org

SATELLITE FEEDS:

Friday, February 23rd, 2007        Monday, February 26th, 2007
1:00 PM - 1:15 PM ET               1:30 PM - 1:45 PM ET
Galaxy 26 (formerly IA-6)          Galaxy 26 (formerly IA-6)
Transponder 15                     Transponder 11
C-Band                             C-Band
Downlink Freq. 4000 Vertical       Downlink Freq. 3920 Vertical

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NEWS: New Legislation Aimed At Reducing Title Fraud and Keeping Unsafe ‘Rebuilt Wrecks' Off the Road

FORMAT: News Package with Extra Soundbites and B-roll.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: Video, hard copy requests, downloadable MPEG2, contact information and more available at: http://www.prnewswire.com/broadcast/27097/consumer.html

SOUNDBITES:

  • Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.)
  • Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL)
  • Rep. John Campbell (R-CA)
  • Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL)
  • Rep. Gene Green (D-TX)
  • Scottie Davis, President, Virginia Automotive Recyclers Association

B-ROLL INCLUDES:

  • cars damaged by Hurricane Katrina
  • flood damaged vehicle viewed at U.S. Capitol

VIDEO PROVIDED BY: National Automobile Dealers Association

Video: Hard copy requests, downloadable MPEG2, contact information and more available at: http://www.prnewswire.com/broadcast/27097/consumer.html