Frontover Safety Tips
Drivers should heighten their awareness before engaging a vehicle into ‘drive’; especially when children are present. Young children are impulsive and unpredictable; still have very poor judgment and little understanding of danger.
KidsAndCars.org urges everyone to install a forward collision avoidance technology such as 360-degree camera system or automatic emergency braking on their vehicles. Many drivers believe they have to wait to purchase a new vehicle to have this safety feature but a forward-facing camera, 360-degree camera system and/or sensors can be installed on ANY vehicle.
- Install locks at the top of doors in your home so children cannot get outside on their own. Keep doors locked at all times.
- Create habits to ensure children are directly supervised every time someone is arriving or leaving the home. This is when most tragedies at the home occur.
- Example of a routine you can implement at your home – Before leaving the home, verbally and visually confirm that all children are with an adult who is actively supervising them. The supervising adult should stay in direct contact with all children until the person leaving is safely out of sight.
- Walk completely around your vehicle scanning the area for children and pets prior to moving a vehicle.
- If you need to move a vehicle without another adult present, make children move away from your vehicle to a place where you can clearly see them or put them in the car with you before moving the car.
- Never allow young children to walk through parking lots alone. Young children should always be carried or placed in a stroller or shopping cart. Even holding hands cannot prevent a child from darting away.
- Do not allow children to play in driveways, cul-de-sacs or parking lots unsupervised.
- Consider using a home alarm system that alerts you if an outside door of the home is opened. This can serve as an additional warning if a child gets out of the home unexpectedly.
- Be aware that steep inclines add to the difficulty of seeing in front of and around a vehicle.
- Trim landscaping around the driveway to ensure you can see when entering the driveway.
- Be especially careful about keeping children safe during busy times, schedule changes and periods of crisis or holidays.
Tips to teach children
Talk to your children about the dangers of vehicles, but never rely on them to protect themselves. Even children who know about vehicle dangers can place themselves in dangerous situations. It only takes one brief moment of distraction or a ball rolling out into the path of a vehicle to suddenly end a life. Children of all ages have been run over and injured or killed by vehicles.
- Parked vehicles might move. Warning signs that a vehicle might move include a running engine, reverse lights (white lights) and brake lights (red lights) or smoke coming from the exhaust pipe on a vehicle.
- The driver may not be able to see you.
- Never walk behind or in front of a running vehicle.
- Never play in parking lots, driveways, streets or cul-de-sacs unsupervised.
- When walking on the sidewalk, watch for cars pulling into or leaving driveways.
These precautions can save lives
