One-year-old is Knocked Down and Injured in Isle of Wight, VA

This month, we will be looking in more depth at crashes involving pedestrians and cyclists in Hampton Roads. The area has a very poor safety record for those on foot and two wheels. This was further emphasized today when a one-year-old child was run over.

The child was hit on a rural road in the Isle of Wight. My thoughts are with the child’s family. Virginia State Police say the child does not appear to have life-threatening injuries but was flown to a local hospital as a precaution.

Lt. Tommy Potter with the Isle of Wight Sheriff’s Office told the media that the incident happened in the Jones Creek area.

Michelle Anaya of Virginia State Police Sgt. said dispatchers received a call at 11:29 a.m. for a car that had backed over a 1-year-old on Boundary Road. This appeared to be a rural street. It’s not clear if this was a back-over accident but these kinds of wrecks hurt and injure children every year.

The nonprofit KidsAndCars.org keeps a meticulous record of the victims of back-over accidents.

The organization points out that in the United States, at least 50 children are involved in back-over accidents every week. At least two die every week. At least half of the kids who are injured are under the age of five. It has called for agencies to adopt the term “blind zones” rather than “blind spots.”

While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration attempted to make car makers equip all new passenger vehicles with rearview cameras by 2014, there was pushback from the industry and it didn’t happen.

In most of these harrowing cases, family members cause back-over accidents. A few seconds of inattention may haunt them for the rest of their lives if their children are badly injured or killed in back-over accidents.

Research shows about half of all back-over deaths involve children under the age of five and in two-thirds of these accidents a parent or close relative backs over the child.

Accidents involving children are the saddest we see as Virginia personal injury lawyers. Unfortunately, they happen far too often on the streets of Hampton Roads. Even in residential streets where children may be playing, cars often fail to drive at or below speed limits and end up causing deaths and injuries. If you or your child has been injured, call Cooper Hurley at (757) 333-3333.