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Putting accidental deaths in perspective

Posted by simonov on 23 June 2007

My attention was captured this morning by an AP report on the tragic and widespread American phenomenon of parents backing over their young children. According to Kids and Cars, a child safety advocacy group in Leawood, Kansas, “more than 1,200 children under 15 . . . were killed since 2000 in nontraffic motor vehicle accidents in the United States. Half of those fatalities were in backovers, almost all of them involving children under 5.”

Whoa!

Since I enjoy fooling around with numbers, I immediately cranked up Excel and downloaded the Centers for Disease Control’s National Vital Statistics Report on US Deaths and Death Rates. Now, if the Kids and Cars people are to be believed, an average of 80 children under the age of 15 are killed every year by their parents backing over them. According to the CDC, that’s a third more than the 60 accidental gun deaths for children under 15 in 2002 (if you want to use the figure for children under the age of five, only 12 died from gun accidents in 2002).

Of course, 60 accidental firearms related deaths is 60 too many, but I can’t help thinking the hysteria from the VPC and the Brady Center regarding accidental firearms deaths is a little disproportionate, considering how many American parents (presumably almost all of them licensed drivers of registered vehicles) can’t help running over their own children every year.

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