You could save a child’s life by taking a five-second walk around your car before you get in.

Many of these preventable injuries and deaths occur in driveways or parking lots when drivers do not see children near their vehicles – often, these drivers are loving family members or friends.

Follow three easy tips to help keep children safer around cars:

Parents and Caregivers

• Firmly hold the hand of children when in driveways, parking lots, and sidewalks.

Drivers

• Drivers, even those without children of their own, are cautioned to do a safety check to look for children walking or playing around cars. 

• Drivers should walk all the way around a parked vehicle to check for kids, toys and pets before entering the car and starting the motor.

More About Spot the Tot

Spot the Tot is a nationwide expansion of the successful program of the same name created by Safe Kids Utah. 

The program teaches parents, drivers, caregivers and children new safety tips to increase awareness about small children sharing the same space as vehicles.  It is designed to increase awareness and reduce the risk of injuries and fatalities that occur in driveways, parking lots, and sidewalks. 

This is the newest initiative of Safe Kids Buckle Up, which has focused on promoting safety for children in cars for more than 10 years. 

Facts

In the United States, from 2001-2003 approximately 2,500 children per year ages 1-14 reported to emergency rooms and an average of 229 children per year died after being struck by a vehicle in a driveway or parking area.   Close to half of children injured in these incidents were ages 1-4.

Child Passenger Safety Web site

More about Child Passenger Safety

Suggested Links

• Spot The Tot and Safe Kids Utah: Violence and Injury Prevention Program at the Utah Department of Health

• Hyperthermia Deaths of Children in Vehicles

• Kids In Cars - Information about keeping kids safe in or around cars

• GM Safety Information