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I-Team: Backover Accidents

PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― A Carlisle mother tells the Eyewitness News I-Team about the loss of her 20 month old son Dillon. The toddler didn't survive a back-over accident.

It's the kind of accident that kills or injures thousands of children every year. Jim Osman has this I-Team report.

"You never get over it. You deal with it. You try to make something positive come out of the tragedy," said Dillon's mother Karena Caputo.

The little boy died May 2007 after his father accidentally backed over the boy in the family's driveway in a so-called back-over accident.

A national safety advocacy group called "Kids and Cars" keeps a database of these accidents. The organization said 50 children are backed over by vehicles every week in the United States.

As CBS 3 has been reporting, there are new warning systems that could be the solution to help save children like Dillon by helping alert parents to a person or obstacle behind their cars.

The CBS 3 I-Team for the first time showed how those new warning systems could be giving you a false sense of security.

We've set up a link to the test video from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

In the NHSTA video, you see an infant crawl behind a sport utility vehicle. The infant isn't detected at all by the bumper sensors. The child stands up, walks back across behind the SUV and isn't detected until he is just about back to the other side.

Another child runs behind another SUV, and again the sensors don't go off.
And another child plays with a ball behind the SUV and isn't detected for 16 seconds. That's enough time for an unsuspecting driver to back over the child.

When we showed the test video to area parents, they were surprised.

"This is something to be concerned about," said New Jersey mom Debbie Forbes.

"You could probably slip into a situation where you know you do start to rely on it and then you know you make one mistake or the detection system makes one mistake and then it's a terrible tragedy," said Liz Mooney from Haddonfield, New Jersey.

The government's tests show the backup sensors can be spotty. The agency concluded "sensor based parking aids in detecting child pedestrians behind the vehicle was typically poor, sporadic and limited in range."

But there are critics of that testing.

Janette Fennell of the advocacy group "Kids and Cars" said sensors are better than driving blind. She stresses that parents need to also look themselves to make sure no one is behind a vehicle.

Dillon's mother Karena agrees.

The Caputo's SUV didn't have a sensor when Dillon's father backed out of the driveway, running over his son.

Karena is telling her story to help other parents.

"Even if it's just to save one child, even if one child is saved from this," said Dillon's mother.

Karena is left with a lifetime of heartache and left wondering whether that technology, despite its potential failings, could have prevented her son's death.

"The pain will get less. It'll lessen over time but it will never go away. It will never go away completely." said Karena.

Automakers said the 'back up sensors' are intended as a parking aid, not as a primary way to spot children behind your car.

Besides the sensors, you can also have a camera installed that will show you what's behind your car.

As the safety advocate said, none of these devices should replace the driver's responsibility to walk all the way around your vehicle before you pull out.

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