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New technology to help prevent kids from being injured or killed in backover accidents

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By BECKY MARTINEZ

bmartinez@crescent-news.com

There's probably nothing worse than losing a child, especially when the death may have been preventable as in many non-traffic fatalities.

Kids and Cars maintains a database logging fatalities and injuries to children left unattended around or in motor vehicles. According to their statistics, found at www.kidsandcars.org, in 2006 there were 598 non-traffic incidents in the United States with 742 children involved resulting in 219 fatalities. As of April 19 of this year, there have been 151 incidents with 212 children involved resulting in 56 deaths.

Of non-traffic fatalities, 49.5 percent are vehicle backovers -- where a driver backs over a child they did not see. Kids and Cars reported that the predominant age of the victims were one year olds; more than 60 percent of backing up incidents involved a larger size vehicle; and in more than 70 percent of the incidents, a parent or close relative was driving.

It further reported that in a 2005 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "over 2,400 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms every year due to a child being struck by or rolled over by a vehicle moving in reverse."

HMI International reported that most SUVs have 15-30 foot blind spots to the rear of the vehicle. To help prevent such tragic accidents, HMI, along with a number of other manufacturers including AudioVox, HitchCAM, and ScopeOut have technology to make the rear of the vehicle visible to drivers.

In the technology are aerodynamic mirrors that provide a panoramic rear view of vehicles and bumper mounted cameras.

These same type of safety devices are now found in newer models of some GM and Ford vehicles.

Bill Strobel, salesman Stykemain Pontiac-Buick-GMC Ltd., Defiance said many of the 2006, 2007 SUVs are equipped with back up cameras, and back up sensors came out in 2005. The sensors are available for cars as well as SUVs.

"Politicians are coming along with legislation that will make it mandatory for vehicles to have this type of safety equipment. General Motors has been working on the project since 2005. They're always working on ways to improve safety. Like with the air bags, they started in the front, now we have side air bags as well," said Strobel.

He explained that the back-up camera is connected to a screen on the vehicle's navigation system allowing the driver to see directly behind the vehicle, from the ground up and out about 6-8 feet on either side.

The sensor detects anything close to the vehicle, "a person, place, thing. Once an object is detected, a sonar beeps at the driver. The closer you get to the object, the more it chimes," said Strobel.

Noah Yoder with Jim Schmidt Ford in Hicksville, said Ford was a little later in the technology. "We do have a reverse back up sensor, built inside the bumper, that will sound if the vehicle is close to an object," said Yoder. But they do not have any cameras.

Lt. Jeff Mack with the Defiance Police Department said backover accidents are "very rare. I do recall one where a child was playing in a drive way and was hit, but it wasn't a fatality."

Napoleon Police Chief Bob Weitzel said he couldn't think of any backover accidents in recent years.

Following backovers as the number one cause of non-traffic fatalities for children less than 15 years old are hypothermia (19.6 percent), frontovers (13.4 percent), vehicle set in motion (7.1 percent), underage driver (2.8 percent), and power window strangulation (2.1 percent).

The Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Cars Safety Act of 2007 "establishes reasonable rulemaking deadlines regarding child safety, applicable to all passenger motor vehicles, in three ways: ensures power windows and panels automatically reverse direction when they detect an obstruction to prevent children from being trapped, injured or killed (estimated cost $8-$12); requires a rearward visibility performance standard that will provide drivers with a means of detecting the presence of a person behind the vehicle to prevent backing incidents (estimated cost is $300); and requires the vehicle service brake to be depressed whenever the vehicle is taken out of park in order to prevent children from disengaging the gear shift and causing the vehicles to roll away (estimated cost is $5)," according to Kids and Cars.

Supporting this legislation along with numerous groups including Kids and Cars and the American Academy of Pediatrics, are Senators John Sununu and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Congressmen Jan Schakowsky and Peter King.