KC family cheers mandate for rear-view auto cameras

Automakers must include life-saving rear-view cameras in most new vehicles by May 2018, a federal government agency announced Monday.

Katherine Thompson wishes such technology had been more widely available 18 months ago.

“If we’d had a backup camera, Benjamin would still be here,” said Thompson, whose Kansas City family has advocated for the cameras since her 2-year-old son, Benjamin Kyle Thompson, died in September 2012. He ran behind his father’s truck while his father was backing out of their driveway.

Thompson, as well as a Kansas City-based auto safety awareness group, applauded the news announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: All new vehicles weighing less than 10,000 pounds, including buses and trucks, built on or after May 1, 2018, must be equipped with such rear-view technology.

“This is a proud day for Kansas City,” said Amber Rollins, director of KidsAndCars.org. The local group, which seeks to raise awareness of the dangers of backup accidents, long has advocated such measures.

The only disappointment, some advocates said, was that the announcement was so long in coming.

“By the time 2018 gets here, it’s probably going to take 10 or 15 years before the majority of cars are equipped with those,” said Debbie Aiman, Benjamin’s grandmother.

“So it’s going to take a long time before it really gets effective and, until then, there are still going to be an awful lot of people who will go through that.”

An average of 210 deaths and 15,000 injuries are caused by such backup accidents every year, according to the federal traffic safety agency. Children under 5 years old account for 31 percent of the deaths, while adults 70 years old or older account for 26 percent.

Once all vehicles on the road have this technology, federal transportation officials estimate it will save 58 to 69 lives a year.

In 2012, Benjamin was the 52nd child in the country to die that year by being backed over by a vehicle, Rollins said.

A children’s transportation safety act, signed by President George W. Bush in 2008, required the federal government to set rear-visibility standards for vehicles. The traffic safety administration originally was to finalize a rule by the end of 2012 to require backup cameras by 2014.

The agency, according to the Monday announcement, “took time on this regulation to ensure that the policy was right.”

Some vehicles already have such technology. When a driver puts the vehicle in reverse, a dashboard video display shows the image from a camera mounted in the rear of the car.

Adding the camera and a suitable visual display could cost $132 to $142 per vehicle, the agency estimated. The cost should be lower for vehicles already equipped with video displays.

Consumer demand likely would have prompted auto makers to equip 73 percent of vehicles by 2018, the agency said. Adding the equipment to the remaining 27 percent would cost an estimated $546 million to $620 million annually, it said.

The new regulations will not include motorcycles.

“Rear visibility requirements will save lives, and will save many families from the heartache suffered after these tragic incidents occur,” David Friedman, the agency’s acting administrator, said in a written statement.

Benjamin’s accident happened about 8 p.m. Sept. 10, 2012, at their home near 84th Street and Hillcrest Road in south Kansas City. Authorities ruled his death accidental, saying the toddler’s father had checked his rearview mirror before backing up but didn’t see Benjamin running toward a trampoline in the front yard.

“Literally, he was standing right next to me,” Thompson recalled Monday of her son.

“My husband didn’t see him and 45 seconds later (Benjamin) was gone. It doesn’t matter how good of a parent you are or if you read your child a Bible story every night, it can happen.”

A similar accident in 2006 left a 23-month-old Northland boy dead.

Not long after Benjamin’s death, KidsAndCars.org staff members organized a demonstration in an Overland Park shopping center parking lot illustrating how drivers often cannot account for blind spots while backing their vehicles. After a grieving period following their son’s death, Thompson and her husband, Billy, began working with the group to remind other parents of the need for care and to advocate for more cameras.

“This is a blessing,” Thompson said Monday.

“It is overdue, but it is going to save the lives of many children and I am very pleased.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2014 at 9:53 PM with the headline "KC family cheers mandate for rear-view auto cameras."