From the Executive Summary
A backover is a crash which occurs when a driver reverses into and injures or kills a nonoccupant such as a pedestrian or a bicyclist. Backovers can occur either on a public roadway or not on a public roadway, i.e., in a driveway or in a parking lot. The former are called traffic backovers and the latter nontraffic backovers. There are also “other backing crashes” that are not backovers, i.e., they do not involve a pedestrian or other nonoccupant, that occur when, for example, a driver backs into a tree or pole or when a driver backs out of a driveway or parking space and is struck by another vehicle. Together, backover crashes and other backing crashes are referred to as backing crashes.
My concern with back-overss is that parents and caregivers almost always put the youngest child int he car first as they are perceived as the most at risk, often if there are multiple children, and with children in carseats that the toddler and the preschool child can be left unsupervised in a busy carpark such as schools and kindergartens. Parents need to be taught to use child restraints such as harnesses. prams and slings in car parking environments as a five year old can not supervise a two year old adequately while mum or dad puts a newborn into a car. In my state carseats for children are mandatory until a child is 8 years of age, this severely increases the length of time that a child may be unsupervised in the carpark, while mum is belting in multiple children in a situation where she has a five year old, two year old and infant under one. The one year old is the child least at risk of being backed over as he or she is unable to walk or release themselves from a stroller.