December 11, 2004

More vehicles have cameras, sensors to help make backing up safer

By Dee-Ann Durbin / Associated PressSuggestions for avoiding a backover accident

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates 120 people die each year when they are backed over by a vehicle. Most are small children and the elderly.

Suggestions for avoiding a backover accident:
-- Walk around the vehicle before moving it.
-- Back up slowly.
-- Know where children are. Make them move away from the vehicle to a place where they are in full view before moving the vehicle.
-- Teach children that "parked" vehicles might move, and if they can't see the driver, the driver might not see them.
-- Teach children never to play in or around a vehicle.
-- Measure your blind spot by setting up a cone behind the vehicle and seeing how far forward you must drive before you can see the cone.
-- Consider buying a vehicle with a rear-mounted camera or sensor, or installing one of those devices.
Source: Kids and Cars
 
WASHINGTON -- Dianne Anthony didn't know her toddler son had wandered out of the house that rainy morning in March 2003 when she was backing up her Ford Econoline van. When she struck his little body, she thought she was hitting the railroad ties that lined her driveway.

Matthew Anthony survived the accident and is now a bubbly 3-year-old. He was one of the approximately 6,000 people who are injured each year in vehicle backovers, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. An additional 120 people are killed, mostly young children and the elderly.

As they were living through the nightmare of his recovery, Matthew's parents were startled to learn that devices to prevent such accidents are available. The most popular option is a sensor, which beeps and may talk to the driver when an object gets in its path. A growing number of vehicles also have cameras mounted on the back bumper that send images to screens on the dashboard or rearview mirror.

" If anybody had offered me a sensor when we bought that van, even for a couple of thousand dollars, I'm sure I would have gotten that," said Matthew's father, 50-year-old Paul Anthony of Sycamore Hills, Mo.

Twenty percent of 2005 vehicle models offer cameras or sensors as standard equipment or an option, according to Edmunds.com, an independent research company. About the same percentage of vehicles offered the devices in the 2003 model year, although the actual number of models with cameras has increased.

Backup aids aren't always marketed as safety devices, so they can be difficult for consumers to spot in brochures. On the Toyota Sienna minivan, for example, the sensor is called "intuitive parking assist" and comes standard only on the luxury model. On the Lexus RX330 sport utility vehicle, a backup camera is included if owners buy a $6,790 DVD navigation package. Forty percent of RX330 owners bought that package last year, the company said.

Most brands offer sensors on at least some models, including Audi, BMW, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, Volkswagen and Volvo.

Several companies sell cameras, which can be installed for around $1,000, and sensors, which are around $400 or less. HitchCam, a five-year-old company based in Commerce, Calif., that sells both devices, has seen sales jump 43 percent in the last year, spokesman Roger Hooker said.

Hooker said backup aids have been on vehicles in Europe and Japan for years, but were usually awkwardly mounted cameras. American consumers prefer cameras and sensors that are flush with the bumper and more subtle, he said.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which sets vehicle standards, is a long way from mandating cameras or sensors. NHTSA spokesman Rae Tyson said the agency believes the technology is too expensive and may not always be reliable.
" It's a potential problem because it might lull people into thinking that there's nothing behind them when there might be," Tyson said.

Safety advocates, including the consumer group Public Citizen and the child advocacy group Kids and Cars, want NHTSA to study the issue in greater depth. But a transportation bill that would have required the agency to study the issue will expire at the end of the year because Congress hasn't acted on it, so safety advocates will have to try again next year.

R. David Pittle, senior vice president of Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, says he thinks cameras are more reliable than sensors, but their cost is prohibitive. That would change if automakers produced more cameras and made them a standard feature, starting with light trucks, Pittle said.

Pittle suspects there's ambivalence about backup aids because some believe parents are to blame for backover accidents.

Paul Anthony said his family took many precautions, including installing a mirror on the back of the van so that they would have a wide-angle view. But it didn't point down.

The morning he was injured, Matthew and his two brothers were being watched by their grandfather, but he couldn't move fast enough when Matthew slipped out the door and ran behind his family's van.

After Dianne Anthony hit Matthew, she moved the van forward and tried again, thinking she was hitting the railroad tie. She hit Matthew three times before she saw his grandfather yelling for her to stop.

Matthew's liver was nearly separated, his intestines were ruptured and the femur on one leg was broken. He was hospitalized for nearly two months.

Paul Anthony still gets choked up when he remembers the helicopter that transported Matthew to the hospital or the doctors telling him his son had a 60-40 chance of surviving surgery. But he talks about the accident as much as he can to help people understand the risk.

" In a space of seconds, something went wrong," he said. "This has really kind of fallen between the cracks in how serious it is and how frequently it happens."

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