STATISTICS ON ACCIDENTS IN REVERSE

Every 1.6 minutes, another U.S. driver backs into trouble.  Actually, every year in the United States alone, there are over 300,000 reported reversing accidents, in driveways, parking lots, and neighborhoods all over the country.  These accidents unfortunately acounts for more than 400 deaths annually (typically young Children), and cost drivers in excess of 1.3 billion dollars in damages.  In these wrecks, a parking sytem from Reverse Backing Sytems would have deterred many of them!

According to Kids and Cars, a nonprofit group that wants to improve child safety around cars, back over incidents killed 91 children in 2003; more than 82% of these deaths were children under the age of four. Plus, children aged one through four, while representing only 6 percent of the total U.S. population, account for about 30 percent of all non-occupants killed in off-road backing crashes. Those deaths represented a 57 percent increase from 2002. A contributing factor is that larger vehicles (SUVs, pickups, and minivans), which have become increasingly popular, have larger blind spots than passenger cars. A blind spot is the area behind a vehicle that a person can't see from the driver's seat.

The Problem of Rear Blind Spots

Back over accidents usually occur when a person, often a child, is hidden in a vehicle’s rear blind spot. The longer the vehicle and the higher the rear window, the bigger the blind spot and the more difficult it is to see a child or object on the ground behind the vehicle.

To illustrate that point, we measured the blind-spot area of a sedan, a minivan, an SUV, and a pickup truck. We placed a 28-inch-high traffic cone at varying distances behind the vehicle to measure how far back it would have to be before a driver of average stature (5 feet 8 inches) and one of short stature (5 feet 1 inch) could see it.

We found that a Honda Accord sedan has a blind spot of roughly 12 feet for an average-height driver. That is, the driver may not see a small object up to 12 feet behind the bumper. The blind spot for a short driver in the Accord is 17 feet. The Dodge Grand Caravan minivan has a blind spot of 13 feet for the average-height driver and 23 feet for the short driver. The Toyota Sequoia SUV is slightly worse: 14.5 feet for an average-height driver; 24.5 feet for a short driver. By far the biggest blind spot, however, occurred with a Chevrolet Avalanche pickup: 30 feet for an average-sized driver, 51 feet for a short driver.

Statistics

• Every 1.6 Minutes, another U.S. Driver backs into trouble.
• Each Year in the united States there are over 300,000 reported reversing accidents, in driveways, parking lots, and neighborhoods all over the country.
• These accidents account for more than 400 deaths annually, usually involving young children, costing drivers in excess of 1.3 billion dollars, in damages.
• According to the Department of Transhortation, 27% of all accients occur in reverse.  Further research showed that 70% of these accidents could have been prevented with the use of a collision avoidance system.
• In July 2001, Inside ITS, published results of a J.D. Power internet survey of 10,000 consumers, which found that 72% would like to have external sensing aids on their next vehicle.