The safety of modern vehicles – particularly 4WDs – has once again been called into question following the tragic death of a one-year-old at a Katherine caravan park.
The little girl was run over by her father as he reversed the family’s four-wheel-drive.
The Northern Territory Automobiles Association says today’s vehicles are making it harder to see small objects and people behind them … and that’s how these sorts of accidents happen.
The organisation’s president, Robert Bradley, says he remembers a near miss involving his own child nearly a quarter of a century ago. A neighbour reversed towards his tricycle-riding young daughter but was stopped just in the nick of time by his wife who thumped on the car’s bonnet.
“Fortunately a tragedy was avoided by probably about a metre,” Mr Bradley told the ABC. “There was absolutely no way he would have seen her.”
While that happened 25 years ago, it seems the dangers today are even greater.
“What happens now, particularly with saloon cars, drivers are sitting lower and vision out the back has always been poor and now it’s even worse,” Mr Bradley said. “You just can’t see things lower than about hip height for probably up to about 20 metres behind you.”
He said while more cameras were being installed with new cars they were often only with luxury models, and while commercial vehicles have mandatory-installation of an alarm sound when reversing towards objects or people, there are still other dangers.
“One of the issues these days is cars are so quiet and people don’t get that audible alarm,” Mr Bradley said. “The message is just try to be careful – we always try and encourage people to walk around the back of their car and look – that’s probably the best start.”
