Vehicle Backover Avoidance Technology Study
This report responds to congressional interest and requirements to examine the safety problem of motor vehicle backover crashes involving pedestrians and the evaluation of available technologies that might help to reduce them. Special interest was expressed regarding the involvement of small children in these types of crashes. The size of the safety problem can only be roughly estimated because many of the backover crashes that occur on private property are not recorded in State or Federal crash databases, which focus on crashes occurring in traffic-ways. Supplementing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) crash records with death certificate reports, backover crashes involving all vehicle types are estimated to cause at least 183 fatalities annually. In addition, between 6,700 and 7,419 injuries result from backover crashes per year. A significant portion of these injuries are minor. NHTSA tested several systems currently available as original equipment on vehicles and aftermarket products to evaluate their performance and potential effectiveness in mitigating backover crashes. The backover prevention technologies that are currently offered by vehicle manufacturers are marketed as "parking aids," which are designed to assist attentive drivers in performing low speed parking maneuvers. Some aftermarket systems using similar technologies are being marketed as safety devices. Testing showed that the performance of sensor-based (ultrasonic and radar) parking aids in detecting child pedestrians behind the vehicle was typically poor, sporadic and limited in range. Based on calculations of the distance required to stop from a typical backing speed, detection ranges exhibited by the systems tested were not sufficient to prevent collisions with pedestrians or other objects. Of the technologies tested for their potential to reduce backover incidents, the camera based systems may have the greatest potential to provide drivers with reliable assistance in identifying people in the path of the vehicle when backing. NHTSA plans to conduct additional work to estimate the effectiveness of such systems and to develop specifications of performance for any technology that could be developed to address this risk. NHTSA also plans to encourage vehicle manufacturers to continue to develop systems that can be effective in addressing this risk at a reasonable cost to the consumer.
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Corporate Authors:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
Washington, DC United States 20590 - Publication Date: 2006-11
Language
- English
Media Info
- Media Type: Web
- Edition: Report to Congress
- Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
- Pagination: 65p
Subject/Index Terms
- TRT Terms: Cameras; Children; Crash injuries; Crashes; Fatalities; Pedestrian vehicle crashes; Performance tests; Radar devices; Technological innovations; Ultrasonic detectors; Vehicle backing
- Uncontrolled Terms: Aftermarket systems; Future research; Original equipment; Parking aids
- Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; Vehicles and Equipment; I91: Vehicle Design and Safety;
Filing Info
- Accession Number: 01036796
- Record Type: Publication
- Files: TRIS, USDOT
- Created Date: Nov 15 2006 4:03PM