The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) began looking into the safety of children in and around cars after it was approached by the family of a toddler who was killed when he was struck by a car on the driveway in 2007. Between the ages of one and two years, infants? mobility increases at a terrific, but irregular rate, so they can easily escape a parent’s supervision for a short time and get into difficulties before the parent realises they have moved. It is not until the age of four or five that children begin to understand the concept of danger, and begin to heed warnings given to them. While most accidents involving children and cars occur when a child is travelling in a car that crashes, or is hit by a car as a pedestrian or cyclist, there are also cases where children are injured, and sometimes killed, when they are in or around a car, but not in a road accident. These tragic cases usually involve a vehicle reversing over a child on a driveway or a child being injured by something inside the vehicle, such as an electric window. (Author/publisher)
Abstract