Unfortunately at least 31 precious little children lost their lives in July of 2007 due to nontraffic events. Backovers, defined as cases where parents backover their children in driveways, continue to lead the list with 12 documented fatalities. This exceeds the national average we quote of 2 backover fatalities per week. July has always been the worst month for heat stroke deaths and 7 more children lost their lives last month due to hyperthermia. Kids just left in hot cars. The third most frequent cause of death for the month of July was frontovers (children that cannot be seen when a vehicle is pulling forward in a driveway or parking lot; e.g., the opposite of a backover). Frontovers continue to grow dramatically with more than one child per week losing their life because they cannot be seen in front of the larger vehicles we drive. All of these 31 deaths were avoidable. Groups such as Kids and Cars are working with auto manufacturers to make cars safer. They were instrumental in getting car manufacuturers to install glow in the dark safety releases in trunks. No one has died since this safety device was installed in all cars.
For more information on this subject matter, please refer to the section on Car and Motorcycle Accidents.
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