I'm sure, if you're like most parents out there you place your children's safety at the top of your priority list. You shopped around and found the safest car out there before you started a family. You did your homework on all the different types and styles of car seats for kids and figured out which one worked best for you and your family. I'll bet you even took your car and car seat to a seat-checking station to let an expert check and approve of your handiwork.
But I wonder if you've thought about how dangerous a vehicle can be when you are reversing out of your driveway. Too many children are killed or seriously injured in backover incidents. As a matter of fact, there are way too many. According to Jeanette Fennell, founder and president of the non-profit foundation KidsandCars.org, 50 children every week are the victims of backover incidents by vehicles in their own driveways, 48 of these children are treated in emergency rooms and sadly, 2 are killed. A backover incident typically occurs when a car coming out of a driveway or parking space backs over a child because the driver did not see him/her. Although these tragedies are understandably traumatic to the parents of the children involved, they are equally devastating to the driver of the vehicle, because unfortunately, in over 70 percent of these incidents it is a direct relative who is driving the vehicle.
Reversible Stroller
Young children are impulsive and unpredictable; they still have very poor judgment, and little understanding of danger. In addition, young children do not recognize boundaries such as sidewalks, driveways or parking spaces. Toddlers are usually moving around on their own between the ages of 12 through 23 months, but the concept of keeping themselves out of danger is just not there yet. Backover incidents are often the consequence of a child following a parent out to the driveway and standing behind the vehicle without the parent's knowledge. A typical scenario, which has happened time and time again, is that a parent will say goodbye to their child, get in the car, check the mirrors and drive away. The child, wanting to say good bye one last time runs after the car and the parent can't see the child. This scenario plays out so frequently that KidsAndCars.org have dubbed this situation as the "bye-bye syndrome". "A young child does not possess the cognitive ability to know daddy can't see him," says Fennell, "People need to grab onto [the fact] that they literally can't avoid hitting something [they] can't see."
Fortunately there is a light at the end of the tunnel. At the end of 2010 the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have approved the necessary solution to this disturbing problem by proposing a comprehensive rear visibility standard for all passenger vehicles. There hasn't been an announcement this significant since seatbelts and airbags were added to vehicles. The new regulations mandate back-up cameras in all passenger cars, trucks, minivans and buses with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,000 pounds or less. Automakers must now get 10 percent of all new vehicles in compliance by 2012, 40 percent by 2013 and 100 percent of new vehicles by 2014.
Some opponents of this new legislation say that making rearview cameras mandatory will not curtail this problem but only compound it further. The line of thinking here is that we as drivers are moving further away from knowing actual driving skills and closer to reliance on digital assistance. Normally I would agree that improving driving skills should be paramount to using any driver assistance technology but in this case, perhaps not. Rearview cameras and reversing sensor systems simply allow for a better picture of what's going on behind your vehicle, and with the increasing size of vehicles, rearward visibility in new vehicles seems to be getting worse, not better. Amazingly, a 5 foot 1 inch driver in a pickup truck can have a rear blind zone of approximately 8 feet wide by 50 feet long!
Using a rearview camera AND a sensor system is the best way to ensure your family's safety. The best reversing sensor system technology on the market is sold by VRS Fleet Products. I say this because they have done away with all the beeping noises and alarms that can be confusing to a driver. Instead, a voice actually speaks to the driver, informing them of the distance between their rear bumper and any obstacle up to 12 feet away and all the way down to 12 inches away. Once an object gets to within 12 inches, a loud tone is heard along with a very loud verbal "CRASH" warning. With other sensor systems, either the vehicle or the object must be stationary in order for it to work properly. But with all VRS sensor systems, if any object, like a small child or even an animal moves behind a vehicle, an alarm sounds and the driver hears "OBJECT IN BLIND AREA" continuously until the car is taken out of reverse. This forces the driver to acknowledge that there is something behind them that shouldn't be and to avoid a catastrophic accident.
For more information on these unique, lifesaving reversing camera and sensor systems, please call 1-888-881-6566 or visit them on the web at vrsfleetproducts.com.