Parents, Please Never Let Go Of Your Kid's Hand

A dashcam footage captured the intense moments when a young boy ran across the street, right into the path of a G10/G11 BMW 7 Series. The child was standing between several parked cars, and was hidden from view of the BMW driver until the final moments before he dashed across the street.

The impact was quite severe and sent the child flying several metres before hitting his head on the tyre of another parked car in front. What’s more distressing was that several adults rushed to the child’s aid and immediately lifted him up on their shoulders – something with one should never do to any person with possible head or neck or spinal trauma – as any movement could worsen the injuries and leave the victim paralyzed.

The speed limit at the stretch of the accident was 50 km/h, and a ‘SLOW’ sign was painted on the road. The Taiwanese police is currently investigating if speeding was a contributing factor to the accident but preliminary investigation shows that the driver is not guilty. However the police added that the driver could have been more vigilant given the street's surroundings.

At this point, we would like to remind drivers that the speed limit for residential areas are usually no more than 30 km/h, while city streets are usually 50 km/h, for obvious reasons, but we all know that most drivers don’t pay heed to it. As shown in this dash cam recording, children, or even adults can be hidden from view behind a vehicle. At the same time, parents also need to be vigilant.

Some cars are now equipped with autonomous emergency braking (AEB), but not many can detect children. Volvo Car’s City Safety and Honda’s Sensing are among the better ones, the former can detect human figures as short as 80 cm while the latter works on figures 100 cm or taller. Still, if a child is to dash out in the manner shown in the video, there's little chance for AEB to work.