Tragedy lurks in the blind zone

It was every parent’s nightmare. As she pulled into her driveway last month, Crystal Choate-Zucca accidentally ran over her 1-year-old son with the family’s 3-ton, 6-foot-high sport utility vehicle.

Zucca said she never saw Cade run in front of her SUV at their home in Lake Tapawingo, Mo. The height and width of her 2003 Yukon Denali created a blind spot that hid him, she said.

Pinned beneath the front tire, the toddler suffered head trauma and a broken arm. Happily, Cade survived the May 2 accident and recently celebrated his second birthday.

Craig Rice, 5, of Sacramento, wasn’t as fortunate. In 2003, his mother, Lisa Rice, accidentally backed over him in her Ford F-150 SuperCrew pickup during a camping trip at Bodega Bay, Calif. Craig was crushed beneath the truck’s wheels and killed.

As summer nears and more youngsters are outside playing, motorists -- especially parents of small children -- need to take extra precautions when little ones might be near their vehicles.

A report by the federal Centers for Disease Control found that from 2001-03, almost 2,500 children ages 1 to 14 were treated each year in hospital emergency rooms for injuries caused by vehicles running over them.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration estimates that 120 people die annually in such accidents, most of them children and the elderly.

Sadly, many of these children are killed or injured in their own driveways by vehicles operated by their parents, said Janette E. Fennell, executive director of Kids and Cars, an organization that tracks non-traffic accidents involving children and vehicles.

Zucca and Rice have joined a growing number of parents and safety advocates concerned about the number of children who die or are injured when a vehicle backs over them. Data show that from 1994 to 2004, more than 60% of backing up incidents involved SUVs, pickup trucks and vans, according to Fennel. Many parents don’t realize that the larger the vehicle, the bigger the blind zone, she said. Fennell’s group and Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports magazine, have been at the forefront in lobbying Congress to enact safety measures. They want a requirement that on new vehicles automakers would provide devices, including rear-viewing cameras and/or audible sensors, to warn motorists if a person or object is behind.

Forty-two percent of 2005 vehicle models offer backing-up cameras or sensors as either standard or optional equipment, according to research from Edmunds.com. The technology -- which can cost $1,000 to $2,000 as optional equipment -- is not required safety equipment.

NHTSA spokeswoman Liz Neblett said the agency will study these but is not ready to mandate them. The technology is “extremely expensive and not foolproof,” Neblett said.

Last week, U.S. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) introduced the Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Cars Safety Act of 2005. The bill, named for a New York 2-year-old who died after his father accidentally backed over him in an SUV, is strongly supported by child safety advocates. The legislation calls for data to be collected on non-crash child injuries and deaths, as well as studies on safety technology that could prevent injuries and deaths from backing-up accidents. It will also call for technology to be implemented by a chosen date.

Not everyone agrees that big vehicles are a problem.

“I wouldn’t put my child in anything but an SUV,” said Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. The group is a coalition of automakers: BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Toyota and Volkswagen.

“No [safety] technology is ever going to be a substitute for a vigilant parent,” Shosteck said.