Ever looked out the back window of your vehicle and thought about all the things that you couldn't see back there? Blind spots vary, but, unless you're sitting on a motorcycle or golf cart, you obviously can't see everything that’s behind you. However, you may be surprised at how large blind spots can be, and truck and SUV blind spots can extend for 30 feet or more. And those blind spots are a big hazard for little people who play in driveways.
A recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study says that in 2007 about 14,000 people were injured and 221 people were killed in backing-up accidents. The study found that such accidents accounted for one-fifth of all fatalities in accidents that occur in driveways, parking lots, and on private roads, the category of "non-traffic accidents." Kids and Cars says that backing-up accidents cause almost half of non-traffic fatalities of children.
The NHTSA study is part of a process to establish rules for rear-view visibility in cars, SUVs, and vans. In advance of these guidelines, vehicle owners can install systems to provide a warning or a rearward view. Sensing systems, often marketed as parking helpers, can provide audible alerts to warn of objects behind a vehicle, and rear-facing cameras can show what is directly behind a car using its own display or the vehicle’s navigation screen.
The NHTSA only recently began to study non-traffic accidents, and says it plans to continue doing so. And I'm going to start looking behind my vehicle before I back out of the driveway.
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