When most people think of car accidents, they think of being on the road and being rear ended or hurt by another vehicle. Most people do not realize that thousands of children are seriously hurt or killed because a driver backed up into them. Most of the time this occurs in the child’s home drive way. Think about how easy it is for a child to leave your front door and get to teh back of your car without you knowing. If you don’t think it’s easy for a child to escape the house and go in back of your car, think again! Sometime children even try to hide behind a car as they do not realize how dangerous a vehicle backing up can be.
Most victims are 1 to 2 years old, which makes perfect sense. They are little enough that they can get behind a vehicle without anyone seeing them and don’t quite fully understand what things are dangerous. More than 60% of backing up accidents involved large size vehicles such as SUVs, vans, minivans and trucks.
Most shocking is that over 70% of these types of accidents are caused by a relative of the child.
A report by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited that over 2400 kids are brought to the emergency room each year due to a driver backing up into them.
Stastics currently show that 50 young children each week in the United States are backed up over. Out of the 50 children, it has been found that 2 of these result in fatalities and 48 of the children are still hurt significantly enough that they have to go to the emergency room.
There have been a few such accidents recently and it is totally heartbreaking. I write this blog just to make people more aware of these types of accidents. I personally count all my kids when they get in and out of the car – of course, I am used to counting because I have to count to 7! Also, before I leave the drive way, I check the back of the car each time to make sure no kid is behind unless all 7 are in the car with me. Of course, as a Phoenix personal injury attorney, I see a lot of accidents so with certain things I am more cautious; however, I think many people do not realize how many of these accident occur and how easy it is to back up and not realize a little kid is behind you. Also, I think since the driveways in Arizona tend to be so short that also makes it easier to backup into someone. Just the other day a highschool kid was walking in back of my car on the way to school. Lucky for him and me, I was still counting when he went in back of my vehicle.
In any case, I hope you all take an extra second for now on and make sure no little kids are behind your vehicle before you begin to back up.
Posted by the Wife of The Husband and Wife Law Team Phoenix Accident Injury Attorneys
