Deaths prompt calls for driveway safety education

Calls are being made for a nationwide education programme for driveway safety following the recent deaths of two toddlers and serious injuries to two others.

A 17-month-old girl is stable in Waikato Hospital after she was partially crushed by a reversing vehicle that had to be lifted off her at her Hamilton home on Saturday.

The accident was followed by another in Hamilton yesterday, when an eight-year-old boy was seriously injured while playing hide and seek in a driveway.

"It seems he might have been possibly hiding beneath the car," Senior Sergeant Matt Rogers of police northern communications said.

"Somebody's driven the car out and has driven over his head."

The incidents in Hamilton follow two fatal driveway accidents involving children in last few weeks.

A four-week-old girl died in a Waitakere City driveway after a rolling car knocked her from her mother's arms and ran her over on March 27, and a two-year-old was killed when a family friend was reversing a car out of a driveway in Wairoa, in northern Hawke's Bay, on March 22.

Waikato University researcher Hayley Mills Poulgrain, who was involved in a recent study of child driveway runovers, said more public awareness and education was needed to prevent more accidents.

Ms Mills Poulgrain's research showed Auckland was the only region where the number of incidents had decreased between 2006 and 2009 - a result of Safekids New Zealand, an education campaign run by Starship Children's Health.

"The evidence from Auckland shows that public awareness is a major catalyst in reducing the number of accidents and education is the best way to raise awareness," Ms Mills Poulgrain said.

"What's needed is a nationwide rollout of educational resources. This could be done through handouts at antenatal classes, immunisations and Plunket checks or at regular intervals through childcare centres, Kohanga Reo and kindergartens."

- NZPA