A 2018 federal mandate to equip all new vehicles with a backup camera was associated with a significant decrease in severe injuries and death in small children, according to research presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2025 National Conference & Exhibition.
The abstract, “The Impact of a Federally Mandated Car Safety Feature on Rate and Severity of Pediatric Backover Trauma,” was presented during the conference at the Colorado Convention Center, held Sept. 26–30. Backover trauma refers to injury sustained when a pedestrian is struck by a motorized vehicle in reverse. These incidents disproportionately affect small children.
The authors conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients less than 5 years of age with backover trauma between January 2011 and November 2024. Two sets of data were compared: trauma registry data of 71 patients treated at a level one pediatric trauma center, and a case list curated by Kids and Car Safety of 28 children from publicly available injury records of the surrounding metropolitan counties.
They found similar trends among both sets of data, with rates of events per year reduced to approximately a third. The proportion of injuries classified as “severe” decreased by nearly half, and the absolute number of publicly reported fatal cases decreased by 78%.
“Our study demonstrates an important association between the federal mandate in 2018 requiring all new vehicles be equipped with a backup camera, and the reduction in both rate and severity of pediatric backover trauma,” said Natalie A. Drucker, MD, MS, an assistant professor of pediatric surgery at UTHealth Houston.
“While this is exciting, necessary progress toward injury prevention in a vulnerable population, these events continue to occur and thus demand attention and continued advocacy efforts to promote the safety of our children.”
Many older vehicles may still lack the safety feature. The authors suggest that backup cameras should be prioritized and subsidized for all vehicles manufactured prior to the 2018 federal mandate.
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Abstract title: The Impact of a Federally Mandated Car Safety Feature on Rate and Severity of Pediatric Backover Trauma
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