Hindsight

[Gob]

US regulators take a crucial step to stop driveway toddler deaths.

Safety regulators in the US are expected to make rear-view cameras mandatory on all new cars from 2014.

In North America, on average two children die and about 50 are injured every week when someone accidentally backs over them in a vehicle, according to KidsAndCars.org, a non-profit group that pushed the government to begin tracking such tragedies.

In Australia, between 12 and 18 toddlers die each year in driveway accidents and at least three children per week are seriously injured.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which proposed the mandate in late 2010, is expected to send a final version of the rule to Congress on Wednesday this week.

A spokeswoman for the agency declined to comment before the new rule was announced.

However, in a preliminary version circulated for public comment, regulators predicted that adding the cameras and viewing screens will cost the auto industry as much as $2.7 billion a year, or $160 to $200 a vehicle. At least some of the cost is expected to be passed on to consumers through higher prices.

But regulators say that 95-112 deaths and as many as 8,374 injuries could be avoided each year by eliminating the wide blind spot behind a vehicle. Government statistics indicate that 228 people of all ages – 44 percent of whom are under age 5 – die every year in driveway accidents involving cars. About 17,000 people a year are injured in such accidents.

"In terms of absolute numbers of lives saved, it certainly isn't the highest," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington.

"But in terms of emotional tragedy, [driveway] deaths are some of the worst imaginable. When you have a parent that kills a child in an incident that's utterly avoidable, they don't ever forget it."

Car makers began offering rear-view cameras only about a decade ago, by using the built-in navigation screens that first appeared on luxury models. The feature has become increasingly popular as companies found more inexpensive ways to display camera images to a driver, such as on a screen hidden in the rear-view mirror.

[dales]

As tragic as these deaths are, this is over kill.

A quick walk around is all that is required.

[Crackpot]

Kids move fast and rear windows aren't always low enough to see a small child. the nice thing about rear view cameras is they show alot more than you can be seen in your mirrors

[dales]

No thanks.

I and millions of other chirldren survived the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's etc. without this device.

A judicial walk around your vehicle before departing is all that is needed.

While doing this, one should take a quick look at the tires, and look for glass, metal debris etc.

Been doing this before leaving home (and parking spots) for decades.

I would imagine this routine takes less than 20 seconds.

[Crackpot]

so fuck any child that runs behind your car after then?

[dales]

Sans the f-word, no.

[Crackpot]

?

[BoSoxGal]

Why is a child that young in the vicinity of a vehicle unsupervised by an adult or older sibling?

When I was a kid and a car was leaving our driveway, we had to stand in front & wave goodbye if they were backing out. Or, my mother or father took 2 minutes to hold our hands until there was no longer a moving vehicle in the vicinity.

It seems to me that if kids that age are free to run behind a moving vehicle, technology isn't the problem. What happens if I drive an older car (I do) and someone lets their little kid run into my driveway as I'm backing out? Do they get to sue me?

Is it my fault their child is trespassing on my driveway and runs behind my moving vehicle? Should my life be ruined (more than it already would be, for hitting and maiming/killing a child) because of their lapse of parenting supervision?

[Crackpot]

ANd I'm sure you'll be completely unscarred emotionally after running over a child the bastard or their parents had it coming.

[BoSoxGal]

Why don't you try reading what I wrote?

Just there, above your nasty response, where I said how my life would already be ruined by maiming/killing a child due to the parents' negligence; there, see that?

I served on an infant mortality review of one of these deaths. I know quite a bit about the impact that it has on the innocent driver who runs over a child because the person or persons in charge of minding that child neglected that duty and allowed a small, fast child to run behind a vehicle.

I 'get' that you're a new parent, CP. I hope you'll be the sort to take responsibility for your child and not expect the rest of us to go out and buy new vehicles so you don't have to worry where your toddler has toddled off to.

[Joe Guy]

I don't like the idea often employed nowadays that we should solve problems with technology rather than modifying our own behavior.

[Scooter]

I 'get' that you're a new parent, CP. I hope you'll be the sort to take responsibility for your child and not expect the rest of us to go out and buy new vehicles so you don't have to worry where your toddler has toddled off to.

I don't think it's a case of "expecting" anything. The technology exists and is pretty cheap and as often happens with new technology, its use will probably be mandated at some point in the construction of new vehicles. That doesn't mean anyone will be expected to ditch their old cars and buy new ones. I drive a 1994 model car that comes without either ABS or airbags, which have long both now standard equipment on any car. That doesn't mean I'm going to ditch a car that still serves my needs to get features that I have up until now done very nicely without.

[BoSoxGal]

That's pretty much my point. I've got several years left in this vehicle and when it's gone I'll be buying another used vehicle; that's how I roll.

I don't want to be sued for failing to purchase technology I don't need. I check to make sure there are no kids around my vehicle when I'm getting in to drive away; you wouldn't believe the glares I've gotten from parents when I've asked them politely to take the hand of their sprog in the grocery store parking lot because I'm about to be backing my vehicle out.

It blows my mind how many very young kids I see running to the car unaccompanied in busy parking lots - WalMart, Kmart, the grocery store. When did so many parents get so retarded?

[Crackpot]

Since when has anyone been sued for technology not on a vehicle? My point was you went on a tirade of legal possibilities that I have never heard of anything infavor of a rather ludite point of view. Your tirade read like a rant justifying blaming the victim(s) (thoughts of my child never entered into it) on the off chance that somone could file an assinine lawsuit that AFAIK has no rational legal basis.

[dales]

It blows my mind how many very young kids I see running to the car unaccompanied in busy parking lots - WalMart, Kmart, the grocery store. When did so many parents get so retarded?

It got so that my youngest daughter would automatically grab my hand when we got out of the car or back to the car.

btw: this ritual is still carried out with my grandson.

I see a lot of stupid parents today, too occupied with their own little lives.

[dgs49]

Even good, well-parented kids do foolish things. They are kids, after all.

But I strongly suspect that the legislators responsible for this ridiculous regulation are investors in companies that make the camera hardware.

If we lowered the national speed limit to 20mph (and enforced it) it would save thousands of lives every year.

But that doesn't make it a good idea.

[BoSoxGal]

A child whose hand is being held can't do foolish things like running into the path of a moving vehicle.

I was raised as dales's child(ren); I recall trying to pull away and having my hand squeezed tight as 'discipline' and reminder of the rule. This is not so hard.

I worry that technology like this will make people stupider about such basics, and when the technology fails, the incidents increase, rather than decrease.

[Crackpot]

Are chuldren expected to be held on to by parents at all times? Should they lose the ability to play outside? An added precaution (on an already low number) does not equal supporting poor parenting. After all you're still relying on the attention of the driver all that is being added is the elimination of a blindspot.

Or are blindspots a good thing?

[Crackpot]

To tell the truth I'm ambivilent on the mandate but the arguments presented against it posted here have been piss poor.

[Joe Guy]

The sad thing is that many of these toddler deaths are people running over their own children. Nobody there to hold their hand because they forgot about them.

I wonder if backup cameras would even help people like that.