Some children become invisible to drivers when they cross the street, and most parents are still unaware.
In an increasing number of cases, drivers do not see the youngest who engage on the road. And parents rarely aware of this when they cross the street with their children on a pedestrian crossing. The vehicle slows down, seems ready to stop. But in some cases, the child is literally absent from the driver’s field of vision, even when he is just a few meters. This phenomenon, still little known to the general public, is increasingly worried the researchers. And the reason simply comes from the type of vehicle.
Indeed, more than half of the new vehicles sold on the European market are concerned. And the consequences are heavy. According to a British study conducted on more than 680,000 collisions, the risk of fatal injury increases by 82 % for children, and even climbs to 130 % for those under 10 years of age. In Belgium, another study has shown that a simple change in the vehicle configuration can increase the risk of death for a pedestrian or cyclist child by 27 %.
It is not a question of speed, reflexes or attention: it is a question of design of the vehicle that the manufacturers do not seem to have sufficiently anticipated. The vehicles concerned are those whose design favors a raised driving position, a massive hood and an imposing silhouette, in other words the SUVs, some of which are particularly high. Their size makes them attractive, but this format has a major drawback: the front of these vehicles, higher and more rigid than that of traditional cars, creates a blind area directly in front of the bumper. In some tests, notably with a RAM TRX model, children aged 9 years old become invisible from the driver’s seat. With a Land Rover Defender model, a 4 and a half year old child disappears completely from the field of vision.
It is precisely in this area that children can be found without being perceived by the driver. Several tests have shown that on some very widespread models, a medium -sized child can remain invisible up to a distance of two meters, which leaves little reaction margin. According to study authors, it becomes urgent to rethink certain technical standards. European NGOs already call to cap this parameter to improve the direct visibility of drivers. In the meantime, it is better to remember when you cross, because a child can be there … without ever having been seen.
