carwrecks

On average, two children die and about 50 are injured every week when someone accidentally backs over them in a vehicle, according to KidsAndCars.org, a nonprofit group that pushed the government to begin tracking such tragedies. And more than two-thirds of the time, a parent or other close relative is behind the wheel.

Now, auto safety regulators have decided to do something about it. Federal regulators plan to announce that automakers will be required to put rearview cameras in all passenger vehicles by 2014 to help drivers see what is behind them. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) proposed the mandate in late 2010 and will soon send a final version of the rule to Congress.

Cars are filled with safety features that have been mandated by government regulators over the years, including air bags and the third brake light, but the rearview camera requirement is one of the biggest steps taken to protect people outside of a vehicle.

"We haven't done anything else to protect pedestrians," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington. "This is one thing we can do and should do."

Regulators predicted that adding the cameras and viewing screens will cost the auto industry as much as $2.7 billion a year, or $160 to $200 a vehicle.  The cost will be passed on to consumers through higher prices, but regulators say that 95 to 112 deaths and as many as 8,374 injuries could be avoided each year by eliminating the wide blind spot behind a vehicle. Government statistics indicate that 228 people of all ages - 44 percent of whom are under age 5 - die every year in backover accidents involving passenger vehicles. About 17,000 people a year are injured in such accidents.

"In terms of absolute numbers of lives saved, it certainly isn't the highest," Mr. Ditlow said. "But in terms of emotional tragedy, backover deaths are some of the worst imaginable. When you have a parent that kills a child in an incident that's utterly avoidable, they don't ever forget it."

Although they account for a small fraction of the deaths that result from automobile crashes, backovers are the most common cause of off-road deaths involving children and vehicles.  As vehicles have become larger and designed to better protect occupants, drivers' ability to see any people or objects behind them has been reduced, said Dan Edmunds, director of vehicle testing at Edmunds.com.

"Over time, the beltlines have risen, and the glass has gotten a little smaller in the interest of safety," Mr. Edmunds said. "There's certainly been a lot of attention paid to safety, but visibility hasn't necessarily been lumped in the same way."

Edmunds now measures the size of the blind spot behind each new vehicle, based on how far back the driver can see a mannequin designed to resemble a small child. Although many backover incidents involve S.U.V.'s and trucks, Mr. Edmunds said some of the biggest blind spots are on passenger cars where the trunk has a high deck lid and the driver sits low to the ground.

For the Cadillac CTS-V coupe, Edmunds measured a blind spot 101 feet long, compared with about 40 feet for minivans from Toyota and Honda.

Automakers have generally supported the requirement, while some took issue with technical aspects of the backup camera proposal and the added cost. "We've had longstanding support for efforts to increase the field of view for these vehicles," said Wade Newton, of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

Regulators studied other ways of improving rear visibility, including the beeping radar-based sensors that many vehicles already offer. But they determined that the sensors often did not detect moving people, especially children. Drivers also responded better to the camera image than the audio alerts.

"Video camera-based systems are by far the most comprehensive and cost-effective currently available solution for reducing backover crashes, fatalities and injuries," according to NHTSA.

1. Always wear a safety belt. Safety belts save lives and help reduce the risk of serious injury in the event of a crash. Every passenger should wear a safety belt for every car ride, no exceptions.

2. Only use hands-free mobile devices. This year, vow not to call, text, sort music or otherwise play with your mobile device while behind the wheel. If you must talk on the phone while driving, use a hands-free headset or pull over to a safe location first. In 2009, 36 percent of crashes were caused by distracted drivers, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Enforce the rule with young drivers in your house too. Fifty percent of teens admit to texting while driving, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

3. Keep your cool. Let go of road rage. That means taking a deep breath when someone cuts you off rather than honking your horn or tailgating. It also means slowing down and steering clear if you see a driver acting erratically. The risks are real: Up to 56 percent of fatal crashes are caused by aggressive driving behavior according to the AAA Foundation.

4. Follow the speed limit. You may be in a hurry to save some time, but slowing down could save your life. According to NHTSA, speeding is a contributing factor in 31 percent of fatal crashes. Male drivers age 15 to 24 are particularly at risk—37 to 39 percent involved in fatal crashes were speeding.

5. Stay grounded in a skid.  Electronic Stability Control (ESC) applies anti-lock brakes (ABS) to individual tires to help keep your car going straight in a slide. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires all 2012 vehicles to include ESC, an improvement estimated to save up to 9,600 lives and prevent up to 238,000 injuries each year.  If your car does not have ABS, tap your brakes to avoid locking your wheels and going into a slide.

One-third of automobile collisions are rear-end collisions.  If we could only figure out why they happen so frequently, perhaps we could avoid those collisions.

Researchers have been working on this problem for a long time.  In 1974, a psychologist named John Voevodsky decided to test his theory that drivers needed to see a dedicated brake light that would illuminate at the same time as the other two brake lights, thus forming a triangle of brake lights.   He added his third brake light, mounted in the base of rear windshields.  When drivers pressed their brakes, a triangle of lights warned following drivers to slow down.

To test whether such a small addition would make a significant difference, Voevodsky equipped 343 San Francisco taxicabs with the third brake light and left 160 taxis with no additional light as a control group. Taxi dispatchers then randomly assigned taxi drivers to taxis with or without the third light.

At the end of a 10-month experiment, taxis with a third brake light had suffered 60.6% fewer rear-end collisions than had the control-group taxis. 

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) repeated Voevodsky's experiment on a larger scale, and concluded that Center High Mounted Stop Lamps (CHMSLs) reduce accidents and injuries. As a result, NHTSA required all new cars (starting in 1986) and all new light trucks (since 1994) to have a third brake light.

Unfortunately, subsequent research shows that the CHMSLs now only reduce rearend collisions by about 5%.  The effect of the triangle of brake lights has apparently worn off.

Researchers now consider what else to do.  For example, at Virginia Tech, the latest idea is a flashing light that shows a difference between whether a car is slowing or stopping.

The problem researches are trying to solve is that drivers find it difficult to judge whether the car in front intends to stop. The solution may be smart brake lights that glow amber in the center when a vehicle is slowing and flash red when stopping. When deceleration is rapid, all of the lights flash red.

The flashing is supposed to alert the driver behind the brake lights.  According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, “Driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes and near-crashes.”

The smart brake system developed by Virginia Tech isn’t implemented in cars yet, but research is now being conducted on buses because they make frequent stops.