Thread: Deaths in Driveways

The death of a child from any cause is always a tragedy.

All drivers should be aware of the potential of injury to children even in their own driveway.

However, and understand this Mr Scruby if you are listening (or in fact hearing),
There are:

• Lies
• Damned Lies
• and Statistics

Less than a quarter (almost 1/5) of all driveway fatalities involved 4WDs.

The statement of "overrepresented" is a statistic which compares proportions of "new registrations" of different classes of cars in a population to the number of this type of accident/injury. The problem of using new registrations, is that it does not adjust for the life-span of the vehicle and is therefore not an actual reflection of the proportions of cars actually on the road.

Small cars don't last as long as trucks and 4wds before they are crushed, therefore the proportion of small cars:4WD is skewed towards the small car end of the dataset.

Just my opionin.

Diana

There is a simple answer to all of those statistics, Just be careful everyone. Jimny up to F350! You would never ever get over running a kid down for want of a second look or a spotter.

Whenever we are anywhere that kids might even remotely be - My wife waits until we are out and in the clear before she gets in, just to act as a spotter. It's a simple but effective plan. And has actually saved a life in Kirribilli when a Chinese kid went between the back of our Disco and the car parked behind us. Wife says STOP. Kid lived happily ever after. I didn't see him until he was across the road.

Rear view camera's are handy too.

Originally Posted by mrapocalypse

There is a simple answer to all of those statistics, Just be careful everyone. Jimny up to F350! You would never ever get over running a kid down for want of a second look or a spotter.

Whenever we are anywhere that kids might even remotely be - ....

Mr Apocalypse

I can not agree with you more!

Just 2 recent personal events.

1. Yesterday afternoon I was in a taxi coming from the city approaching a traffic light intersection (Alison Road and Cowper Street at Randwick Racecourse). All of a sudden a soccer ball came rolling across the intersection followed immediately by a little boy no more than 5 years old. I could not believe that on such a road during the busy time of the day every car stopped, with not a single vehicle coming near the child and what could have been a most tragic scene.
2. At my family home on the farm my parents are building a granny flat to move into so my niece can move into the main house with her family. It's a great idea, 1 property spanning four generations living together (me just on weekends). A great amount of time and effort has been included so that mum's car does not have to reverse in or out of it's carport. Just very sensible planning, but not always possible in todays housing developments.

Yeah, I run a rear camera... No hiding behind my Disco....

And, no, having the death of ANYONE on your conscience is not a nice thing to have....

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

1. Just very sensible planning, but not always possible in todays housing developments.

Well designed, great idea!!!!!


It's always possible, its just that nowadays people want to live in shoeboxes on top of each other...and wont spend the money to design better setups.

After all if noone purchased those tiny blocks the developers might re think their "pack em in" mentality

You can walk one side of Melbourne to the other now on house roofs and not have to jump

The Aussie dream of a 1/4 acre seems dead.... At least I have my 1/4

And even better we have a laneway behind the property.....

When I did my driving test they used to instruct you to walk around the vehicle before getting in basically to check the vehicle over. If everybody just followed this simple practice I'm sure the number of fatalaties would drop. People would at least be aware of what or who was behind their vehicle before getting in (although it would not necessarily prevent a little one from running behind afterwards).

Where possible, I also try to reverse into parking spaces and driveways - on the driver's side too. This means I can scope out the space beforehand and whilst reversing I have a clear view of where I'm going in the nearside mirror. When I leave, I also have less risk because I always drive off forwards.

Just a couple of little things, but they help avoid other little things.

My brother in law has 8 kids and one has prada willie syndrome, he is always crawling about and has on occasion been known to sit behind the cars waving at cars as they go about there biz, I am always scared he will get knocked or even worse get knocked by me so I check under ,behind before I leave his driveway and preferably have one of the older kids take locky away from the cars, it really plays on your nerves, where is he?, the day you ddont get out and check is the day you do something you will regret always. Schools are bad enough, specially with little kids who just run out without looking, 40kph is still to fast for a school zone, 4wds or the family sedan dont discriminate when it comes to running over someone, its a terrible thing no matter how you twist it around, you cant lay blame on any one group of vehicles, too many things come into play. A rear camera is the best investment, all cars should have them as standard fitting.