Vehicles Set in Motion
Each year hundreds of children are hospitalized or even killed after accidentally setting a car into motion. These tragedies usually take place when a child is left alone inside a vehicle or when a child gets into a vehicle on their own.
Many people have “their story” about the time they were in a vehicle that started rolling with them in it. It’s something you never forget.
We hope these terrible tragedies will be eradicated someday soon. Thanks to KidsAndCars.org’s leadership, a regulation now requires vehicles to come with a safety feature called a Brake Transmission Shift Interlock (BTSI) that prevents the vehicle from being put into gear without the driver’s foot on the brake. But, beware, not all vehicles on the road today have this important safety feature.
Child Stories / Tragedies
These are just a few stories of children whose lives were lost from vehicles being accidentally set into motion.
Tragedies
 |  |  |  |
Near Misses
 |
Chart, Statistics, Graphics
KidsAndCars.org makes available charts and graphs to be downloaded for free and are excellent education materials. We encourage you to share, print, copy, distribute, or enlarge them; but we ask that no changes be made. Simply click on an image below to open a full PDF file of the chart.
Vehicles Set in Motion Studies
Below are studies specific to injuries and deaths resulting from vehicles being unintentionally set into motion by children.
- New Study Released on Nontraffic Injuries and Fatalities in Young Children – 9/27/2017
- Child deaths and injuries in driveways: Response to the recommendations of the child death review team
- Rollover Injuries in Residential Driveways: Age-related Patterns of Injury
- Driveway crush injuries in young children: a highly lethal, devastating, and potentially preventable event
- Injuries Associated With Hazards Involving Motor Vehicle “Rollaways”
- Crush injuries to the head in children
- Unsupervised Children in Vehicles: A Risk for Pediatric Trauma
