Considering that if you drive in forwards you have to reverse out anyway (i.e. posses reversing skills), it is much better in my opinion to reverse INTO a driveway then drive out forwards, because as you go INTO the driveway:
1. You have peripheral vision of the area for pedestrians and cyclists
2. Your car is warmed up and windows de-misted

However, if you reverse out of the driveway you do NOT have peripheral vision, and often make matters worse by having misted up windows. Agree? Should it be made legal? Poll.

Background: My 4 year old daughter nearly got run over today by a car reversing out of it's driveway, if there had been an accident it would have been a 50/50 as my daughter shouldn't have gone ahead on the footpath (she was being picked up by a friend from Kindy) and the driver wasn't doing crazy speeds, however the incident would have been avoided had the driver been driving out forwards.

The downside is that reversing into your driveway means that if you have kids running around inside then you will have to be more careful, but since you will likely have to get out to open a gate it's not much of an issue, and the risks of this are lower than the risks when your child is out and about.

I do not normally condone nanny-state rules but today I'm having a rant OK!

not really, if the fence is high, the nose of the car is going to be far enuff out to hit the child riding on the footpath (legal as long as the wheel is SMALLER than 20inch or delivering mail), before the driver can see.

point is moot if said vehicle is a van

WOW

Do people still use the reverse function on their cars these days.

My office made it a rule to reverse into the carparks outside the building for the sake of safety, much like you advocate above. However, we had a number of scrapes and dents, and someone reversed through the front door of the building one morning, so now it's a recomendation, not a rule.

People go faster forwards than backwards, so while they may see you sooner, it's just as likely they will run you down as they won;t be able to stop in time still.

I thought it already was technically illegal, but that law only comes in to play at times of accidents. I mat be wrong though....it has been known to happen.

Whether the vehicle is driven forwards or backwards doesn't make it any less lethal. imagine reversing between two parked cars across foot path into driveway.
Motor centric Town Planning of the 20th century is really to blame here.

crazychris wrote:People go faster forwards than backwards, so while they may see you sooner, it's just as likely they will run you down as they won;t be able to stop in time still.

This is very true.

being in welly, my driveway is on a reasonable hill.
My drive way is long, and narrow. to drive into my driveway in reverse I'd have to stop uphill of my driveway and take more time and care to line with the driveway than I would driving in forwards. I think it'd be extremely hard to enforce such a crazy law, and I bet most people wouldn't obey it cause of the time inconvenience.

IMO I don't think it's a smart idea.

SlackBoy wrote:not really, if the fence is high, the nose of the car is going to be far enuff out to hit the child riding on the footpath (legal as long as the wheel is SMALLER than 20inch or delivering mail), before the driver can see.

point is moot if said vehicle is a van

Agreed. I don't think it should be illegal, but definitely people need to be cautious - we have kids and dogs in our neighbourhood and I'm always a bit concerned when backing out. One of them slammed in to me with his scooter once - although given that he hit the front of the car and I was reversing out you could argue he probably wasn't watching where he was going - and like I say, he hit me (no harm or damage but he learned a wee lesson and was very apologetic).

It's entirely likely that people would go faster driving forwards, so given there is a period where they still can't see it wouldn't really help the situation.

A Police friend said when they were testing the new police cars, Commodores which have shocking rear visibility due to the vehicle shape that the visibility in the rear view mirror of a child on the trike was 20 metres i.e. if the child was closer than 20 metres they could not be seen.
More cars are being fitted with reversing cameras and proximity sensors, I've never used them but sounds a good idea.

Sorry to hear that mfw. Made worse by the fact it was totally outside of your supervision and control.

No I don't think it should be made illegal. Whichever way you make the rules, kids will still die due to unaware or inattentive drivers etc. In our driveway as its uphill It'd be way more dangerous to back in than drive in forwards. But I know exactly what you mean about backing out with foggy windows in the morning. Usually I open the door and look out that way in my Van as I can actually see!

But you have to be so vigilant while driving in and out of your own driveway when you have small kids. Or when friends/family come to visit . Always find out exactly where they are and get the wife partner or whoever to come and get them. You just can't assume they're still over playing on the swing they were on even 10secs ago. Thats why quite a few kids get killed each yr in NZ on driveways.
Shit I remember when I was 4, when it was still normal for kids to roam the neighbourhood, my Mum was driving on the other side of the road just down from our house and stopped. Without thinking or looking I had this all-consuming urge to run over, so I immediately ran straight across the road to see her. That could have been game over right there. Young kids just have no concept of the dangers...

Always freaks me out in even supermarket carparks especially if your kid is under 6 or so. They're so small cars can't see them especially when backing out, but even going forwards if people aren't concentrating they could easily miss seeing a small child. You always have to be holding their hands etc and not let go for a second. My youngest is now 6 but he's still quite small for his age, and around the size of a 5yr old so it will still be quite a few years before he is visible.

I may be wrong here... but I seem to remember that the UK has a law against reversing onto a main road.
Makes a lot of sense to me, their roads are typically quite narrow within towns, and someone reversing out will have to reverse, then select first (in a manual car obviously) and then drive off... in turn potentially holding up traffic.
Of course, it'll take them longer to turn into the driveway in the first place, unless they have a turning bay.
THEN - there's the visibility issue. I'm a fan of reversing in personally, vision and a speedy getaway is good. After all, some of those unicyclists move fast, and if I don't run them over, who will??

Should it be illegal to reverse anywhere.

As a driver you are blessed with a certain responsibility, with this comes risk. You drive to the conditions. You can't legislate against not paying attention.

Personally I would highlight this aspect of driver awareness to the driver of the vehicle that drove over your daughter.
Step 1: Zip tie the hands of person who ran over your daughter to a tow rope.
Step 2: Attach the tow rope to the rear of your car.
Step 3: Drive gently forward increasing the speed to a running speed ensuring that you don't break the speed limit.
Step 4: Once you have done a few hundred metres stop and confer with the person on the end of the tow rope to acertain if they agree with you that they should pay attention to others even behind you. If there is any doubt then repeat steps 3-4.

Is there a law somewhere that concerns reversing from driveways onto state highways or some kind of main roads?

It was a long time ago, but when I was in college I remember my father being utterly disgusted that our road was turned into something fairly main, may have been a state highway (?) and the city council forced him (and other residents) to put in turning areas on the property as we were no longer allowed to reverse out onto the road there.
Wish I could remember the details but I remember learning to drive and having it drummed into me that it was illegal for me to back out of our driveway and I had to remember to use the turning area and go out forwards.