Tragic motor vehicle accidents and fatalities occur every day. Most of them happen to vulnerable members of society, such as young children.
The drivers of the vehicles are not always irresponsible, reckless or guilty of substance-impaired driving. They are regular drivers who are victims of a phenomenon many people forget. Vehicles have large blind spots in front and back. Higher and larger vehicles, such as trucks or SUVs, have correspondingly greater blind areas.
A father’s worst nightmare
After dinner out, a father hugged his 2-year-old son in the house while his wife was paying the babysitter. He went out to his SUV to back it up onto the driveway. He performed the proper mirror checks and carefully began to move, not realizing his little boy had followed him outside. His vehicle bumped over something. He jumped out and saw his child. He immediately recognized the fatal nature of the injuries. He was a doctor.
The boy’s father, Dr. Greg Gulbransen, was an orthopedic pediatrician. He had devoted his career to helping children. In unbelievable anguish, he did not understand how he could have taken his own child’s life.
Legislation to decrease backover deaths
Two days later, Dr.Gulbransen heard a speech at the American Academy of Pediatrics about the risk in backover crash fatalities. The presenter correlated the increase to the rise in popularity of driving bigger vehicles. According to AutoBody Review, 50 backover crashes per week occur to children in the U.S. that cause severe or fatal injuries.
Dr. Gulbransen knew how difficult it would be to relive the death of his son Cameron day after day. Nevertheless, as a pediatrician, he felt it was his duty to get involved. The doctor publically campaigned to install backup cameras in all vehicles. There was already a law that required across-the-board backup cameras, but the auto industry kept stonewalling the order by insisting the cameras were too expensive.
Because of Dr. Gulbransen’s persistent, decade-long campaign, he recently succeeded in forcing the big automakers to comply. The law was renamed the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act. Backup cameras will be standard equipment on all new passenger vehicles.