Danger in the Driveway

By Meredith O'Brien

Big vehicles and toddlers make a lethal combination, according to a children’s safety expert.

"In 2003, at least 72 children died in the United States as a result of being accidentally backed over by a vehicle," said Janette Fennell, founder and president of Kids and Cars, an advocacy group which promotes vehicle safety for children. "Even more heartbreaking is the fact that the majority of those tragedies occurred with a parent or a close relative behind the wheel," she says.

"With the growing popularity of SUVs, which have extremely large blind spots that can sometimes camouflage up to 20 children behind them, the potential for back-over incidents is increasing," Fennell says, adding that most fatal back-overs occur when the drivers are in large vehicles.

So how can parents of the most vulnerable age group, toddlers, keep their children safe in their own driveways? BabyZone spoke with Fennell about this little known danger:

Are we seeing more children getting hurt by people backing into them while driving SUVs or big vehicles, or are these accidents just garnering more media coverage?

Janette Fennell: Both. In the last few years we’ve seen a significant trend emerging where kids get backed over. We went from about ten incidents per year in the early-to-late 1990s, to at least 72 fatalities last year. In 2003, we tracked 154 [non-traffic, non-crash car-related] deaths, of those, 72 were back-overs. That’s more than one child per week.

BabyZone: Is it just small children who are at risk here, just the ones who don’t really get the fact that vehicles can hurt them, or does this happen to older children as well?

Fennell: We track children ages 15 and younger. It’s kind of rare for older kids to get hurt because they do know that the vehicle will hurt them. Basically it’s under age four. It truly is an epidemic... If more than one child per week was dying from eating a hamburger, we’d pull the hamburger off the shelves... No one has been warning us that at one or two miles per hour a child can die. Children are being backed over. These little toddlers are 20 to 30 pounds. They don’t have a chance against a 4,000-pound vehicle.

BabyZone: Are there more accidents because of the popularity of SUVs?

Fennell: It’s not just SUVs. All vehicles have blind spots, but with the larger, taller vehicles the incidents surely rise. If you’re backing up any of these vehicles, you can’t see what’s behind you. All vehicles are dangerous because there are blind spots behind them and you can’t see children. When you are driving the larger, wider vehicles, the blind spot is considerably larger.

BabyZone: Do these accidents happen as frequently with passenger cars as they do with SUVs and minivans?

Fennell: No. We do see a higher trend with larger vehicles, which we define as minivans, SUVs, and pickup trucks.

BabyZone: Other than the size of the vehicles, how do most of these accidents happen? Are there any common denominators?

Fennell: Yes, we call it the “Bye-Bye Syndrome.” What we see happening is that Mom and Dad are in the house with Baby. Baby has just learned how to walk. Dad needs to run an errand. Baby could never follow him out before. And since Baby just figured out how to get out of the house and follow behind, his parents aren’t expecting it. It’s unbelievable how many cases fit that profile. At that age [around age one], the toddlers do not have any idea that they’re putting themselves in harm’s way.

BabyZone: Last year, a California father accidentally hit and killed his toddler son when he was driving his SUV in front of his home and the son ran out to greet him. Should children never be allowed to play in driveways, ride their bikes in the driveway, or play basketball because you never know when someone may pull in?

Fennell: That’s where you really need to educate your children. But we can’t really rely on the judgment of children to save themselves. They’re impulsive. It’s really up to the driver to take control of these things. One of my rules is you don’t pull into or out of a driveway if there are any kids playing there.

What Parents Can Do
Fennell offers several suggestions to help protect children against accidental death and injury in the driveway:

• Don’t let children play in the driveway.
• If they are in the driveway or in an adjacent yard, Fennell’s rule is that all the children must stand on the front steps—or someplace visible and away from the driveway—before she moves the vehicle. If she can see everyone on the steps, she knows it’s safe to pull into or out of the driveway.
• Make sure that the people supervising children, particularly toddlers, know exactly when drivers are leaving so the children don’t venture out to the driveway.
• Install rear sensors or video cameras that mount on vehicle bumpers and provide images that span all the way to the ground.

For more information on driveway and vehicle safety, see the Kids and Cars web site: www.kidsandcars.org.

About the Author

Meredith O’Brien is a freelance journalist living in the Boston area. She has written for a variety of news organizations and web sites on topics ranging from parenting, education and pediatric development, to politics, government and journalism ethics. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Nation, The Indianapolis Star and The Hartford Courant. She was a co-author of the 1996 book The Buying of the President which featured profiles of the major donors to the 1996 presidential candidates. O’Brien has taught college writing and journalism courses and currently teaches media criticism at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.