SUBURBAN BOCA RATON, Fla. — Thirteen years after the Rosenfelds lost their 2-year-old daughter, Veronica, to a backup collision in suburban Boca Raton, rearview cameras will soon be the standard in every new car sold.
“I had people who told me that they now see her face when they’re backing up because it’s a reminder that they have to look," said Arden Rosenfeld, Veronica's mom. "They have to be aware.”
In March 2005, Rosenfeld learned in the most unimaginable way of the dangerous blind spot behind all cars.
“We were in the neighborhood just taking a walk. She was about 5 feet in front of me. The neighbor pulled out of his driveway and didn’t see her, so she was backed over," she said. "The landscape was covering the whole entire driveway so I didn’t even see a car in the driveway."
Veronica died from the crash. That life-changing moment for Rosenfeld launched a movement.
“I really pushed for three years into this legislation, which really helped me grieve," she said. "I felt like I was doing it with Veronica.”
Rosenfeld was one of several parents who pushed to get a bill passed in Congress to set backup safety standards for car manufacturers, like backup cameras.
“A little child is this big. The window is up here," she said.
The bill passed in 2011, but it’s just now being rolled out.
Just five minutes down the road from where Veronica was run over, another little girl was too on Sunday. She got behind the right front tire of a car backing up out of a driveway, according to PBSO.
“I know what this family is going to go through for a very long time," Rosenfeld said.
While accidents can always happen, Rosenfeld hopes with the new safety standards, more families won’t have to go through the horror of losing a child to a blind spot.
"Now it is law so in 2019 every single vehicle, it doesn’t matter how much it costs, new vehicles, will have cameras in their cars," she said.
