A Florida 9-year-old died after crawling under a moving bus. This nonprofit is now raising awareness about blind zones

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A nonprofit is raising awareness of the dangers of front blind zones after a 9-year-old was run over and killed by a school bus in Orange County.

Every year, thousands of children are either hurt or killed by a driver moving very slowly in a parking lot or driveway because they didn’t see the child in the area directly in front of the vehicle.

These tragedies are called frontover crashes.

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“This is one of those things that nobody thinks is gonna happen to them, until it does,” Director of Kids and Car Safety Amber Rollins, said.

Rollins said more people need to be aware of the dangers of blind zones.

“Most vehicle tragedies are preventable. The overwhelming majority. You can’t avoid hitting something that you can’t see. Let’s start there,” Rollins said.

In Orange County, a 9-year-old boy was killed after he crawled under a moving school bus that had just dropped him off at his stop. He was running after a football.

“He was a very bubbly person. He was very compassionate. He loved being around people. He loved being outside,” Trenae Gayle, a family member of the victim, said.

Kids and Car Safety is calling for ‘360′ or “birdseye view” camera systems and automatic emergency braking in all new cars to prevent these kinds of tragedies. In West Augustine, a 6-year-old boy recently lost his life because he was in the blind zone of a moving car.

“We need better technology in our vehicles, that can help prevent a driver from hitting something they literally and physically they cannot see. So, if a child is in that blind zone, we want technology that is going to be able to detect the, and stop that vehicle automatically if they cannot see them,” Rollins said.

This is an issue I’ve been reporting on for years. Here’s a scenario we staged with two young children playing in a driveway.

Frontover deaths have grown significantly over the past decade as more people are opting for bigger trucks and SUVs.

Every car has a blind spot in front, behind and to the sides. The bigger the car, the bigger the blind spot.

“We can’t re-engineer children. Their little brains are gonna work just the way they’re meant to work but we can reengineer vehicles and we can make the environment for our children safer,” Rollins said.