ON THE ROAD

BY JESSICA VANEGEREN
Of The Post and Courier Staff

Nearly two years ago, Janette Fennell, the founder of an organization called Kids And Cars, first contacted me with a host of information about the dangers large vehicles present to small children.

It was her goal, she said, to raise awareness about what she felt was the alarmingly high number of small children killed each year when they are accidentally backed over by vehicles. Since 1993, 249 children across the country have been killed by vehicles that were backing up, she said.

Most disturbing to her, she said at the time, was the lack of most local police departments and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which records statistics related to traffic-related deaths, from keeping their own records on those types of accidents.

Fennell is making giant strides in her efforts to change this, and as one West Ashley family found out on Thursday, the ability of a small child's life to be put in harms way because of a large vehicle backing up is not as obscure an occurrence as most of us would like to believe. In that incident, the life of a 3-year-old boy was saved by the heroic actions of his father.

The driver of the vehicle, the boy's grandfather, was unable to see the 3-year-old in the vehicle's blind spot. The father, Robert Little, was struck and killed during his successful effort to push his son to safety.

Fennell, who routinely hears from distraught family members after similar tragedies, offers tips on how other families can try to prevent a similar accident from occurring.

Recommendations include:
-- Teach children that parked vehicles might move. Let them know that they may be able to see the vehicle, but the driver may not be able to see them.
-- Hold children's hands when leaving a vehicle.
-- Teach your children to never play in, around or behind vehicles.
-- Never leave children alone in or around cars, not even for a minute.
-- Keep vehicles locked at all times, even if they are parked in the garage or the driveway.
-- Never leave keys in a car.

Fennell also recommends parents measure the blind spot behind their vehicle. This can be done by taking a traffic cone, or any available object that is roughly 28 inches tall (about the same size as an average 2-year-old) and place it behind the vehicle. With one person in the driver's seat, continue to move the cone back, away from the vehicle, until the driver can see the top of the cone. The cone's distance from the vehicle signifies the vehicle's blind spot for the driver. Because drivers and vehicles are different sizes, it is important to perform the test with all drivers in a household.

"The truth is, every vehicle has a blind spot," Fennell said. "And there is no regulation for rear visibility."

Last January, Fennell approached Consumer Reports, a magazine that, among other things, tests vehicles' safety features, to begin testing for the vehicles' blind spots. The publication agreed and first published its findings late last year.

For example, a 5-foot-1-inch driver of a Honda Accord has a blind spot of about 17 feet behind the vehicle. The blind spot of a 5-foot-8-inch driver of the same vehicle shrinks to 12 feet.

The 5-foot-1-inch driver in a Chevrolet Avalanche would have a blind spot of 51 feet. The blind spot of a 5-foot-8-inch driver would be 29 feet.

" Everybody recognizes there is a blind spot behind our vehicle because most of us struggle to judge the size of our vehicle when we are backing up into a parking spot," said Douglas Love, senior communications counsel with Consumer Reports. "In some cases it is possible to put a whole classroom full of toddlers in a car's blind spot and you won't see any of them."

Founded in 1996, Kids And Cars is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention of injuries and deaths to children associated with automobiles.
For more information visit www.kidsandcars.org.