Fatalities and Injuries in Motor Vehicle Backing Crashes¹

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[National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Fatalities and injuries in motor vehicle backing crashes. Ann Emerg Med. 2009;54:603-604.]

In response to the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), the Secretary of Transportation was required to prepare a report to Congress, examining fatalities and injuries in backing crashes. The subsequent passage of the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007 required the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to establish a surveillance system to collect data on backing crashes that occur on nonpublic roadways, including driveways and parking lots, locations not covered by NHTSA's existing traffic injury surveillance systems. This report summarizes data from all of the agency's databases relevant to backing crashes.

The term backing crashes includes both “back-overs,” ie, when a driver reverses into and injures or kills a nonvehicle occupant such as a pedestrian or bicyclist, and crashes in which the driver reverses into a pole or other vehicle. Data were compiled from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the National Automotive Sampling System–General Estimates System (NASS-GES), as well as from the newly developed Not in Traffic Surveillance (NiTS) system, which samples nontraffic crashes, including nontraffic back-over crashes, and can be used to produce national estimates. Nontraffic crashes are those not occurring on public roadways.

The following Table summarizes the nontraffic fatalities and injuries from NiTS and traffic fatalities and injuries from FARS and NASS-GES in back-over and other backing crashes for all vehicles, as well as passenger vehicles. Passenger vehicles, which include cars, pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles, and vans, are broken out separately because crashes involving these vehicles account for the majority of all backing crash fatalities and injuries. The category of all vehicles includes the addition of heavy trucks, buses, and motorcycles. Heavy trucks account for about 90% of the difference between fatalities involving all vehicles and just passenger vehicles.

Table. Nontraffic fatalities and injuries by vehicle type and data source.

Combining the 221 NiTS back-over fatalities with the annual average of 71 FARS back-over fatalities produces an estimate of 292 total annual back-over fatalities. The estimated 14,000 NiTS back-over injuries when combined with the 4,000 NASS-GES back-over injuries produces an estimate of 18,000 total annual back-over injuries. Examination of the nontraffic cases from NiTS and the traffic cases from FARS and NASS-GES indicated that the only significant difference between the 2 groups was the location of the crash. Therefore, the 2 groups were combined when the overall characteristics of back-over crashes were described. For all backing crashes, the NiTS provided information for about 75% of the total estimated back-over fatalities and injuries.

Most back-over fatalities and injuries involve passenger vehicles. Among cases in which the type of the striking vehicle is known, 78% of the back-over fatalities and 95% of the back-over injuries involved passenger vehicles. Although people of all ages are victims of back-overs, children younger than 5 years and adults aged 70 years and older have an increased risk of being back-over victims compared with the rest of the population. Back-over fatalities happen in a variety of areas, with the most common area being the driveway, closely followed by other residential areas, public roadways, and nonresidential parking lots. Back-over injuries tend to happen more frequently in nonresidential parking lots than other areas.

NHTSA's Special Crash Investigations (SCI) program provided detailed investigations of back-over crashes to supplement the information obtained through crash reports. The SCI investigations found that about 40% of the nonoccupant victims were related to the driver. The SCI investigations also indicated that more nonoccupants were approaching the backing vehicles from the side rather than being stationary behind the vehicles.

Copies of the 42-page report “Fatalities and Injuries in Motor Vehicle Backing Crashes” can be obtained from the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, NHTSA, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20590 or downloaded from the NHTSA Web site at http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/CATS/listpublications.aspx?Id=235&ShowBy=Category.

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Reference 

1. US Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Fatalities and Injuries in Motor Vehicle Backing Crashes. Washington, DC: US Dept of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; 2008;Publication No. DOT HS 811 144
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