When Children Die: Improving a Driver's Blind Rearward View

Sometime ago, a little angel climbed on Angela Gridley's lap and gave her a hug and a kiss before disappearing somewhere into the house. That was the last time Angela saw her two-year-old daughter Aliviah alive. A few minutes later, Angela's brother-in-law got in his truck, put it in reverse, and accidentally backed over little Aliviah. She died.

The little girl joined a long and growing list of hundreds of children who have died in backover accidents, mostly from large cars driven by family members across the United States. Since the year 2000, these accidents have increased along with the size and width of vehicles available to consumers in the country. Finally, the federal government is taking action to reduce these fatalities in the coming years.

Already approved by the House, the U.S. Senate passed on February 14 of 2008 the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act. The bill will come to fill a legislative gap requiring automakers in the U.S. to install the necessary technology on vehicles to reduce the number of children killed in preventable backover accidents.

"This measure will address child safety issues involving motor vehicles, including backover incidents, injuries by power windows, and accidents when a vehicle inadvertently shifts out of gear and into motion," said Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in a press release.

Each week around the Country at least two children die in backover accidents, according to Janette Fennell from Kids and Cars dot org. The number could be much higher since neither the state nor the federal government keep record on this kind of backover incidents, considered non-traffic related accidents. But Kids and Cars does and says the number of children killed keeps growing every year: from 92 in 2000 to more than 230 in 2007.

Most of these little victims are one and two year-olds, backed over in more than 60 percent of the cases by a large vehicle - truck, van or SUV - driven by a relative.

The bill, once signed by the President, will require the U.S. Department of Transportation to issue rearward visibility and safety standards for all vehicles. This means automobiles will need a piece of equipment to increase drivers' field of view behind their cars, which may include mirrors, sensor devices, and cameras.

The new legislation will help reduce the number of fatalities. Nevertheless, it may take from two to three years, even more, before the new standards are in place and made effective.

In the mean time, authorities and experts ask drivers and their families to take any necessary precautions to help prevent kids being baked over. This is the idea behind the Gridley family's website memorial of Aliviah, to remind everyone that no kid should become a statistic from a totally preventable accident.