Why do cars still have blind spots?

Factual Questions
41

They can be, and the vast majority of cars ever made have been, and still are, designed not to have blind spots. The cause of “blind spots” in 95% (WAG) of ordinary passenger vehicles is not the design of the car, but** the way the driver has adjusted the side mirrors**.

Sigene got it right in post 3:

If you don’t trust Sigene, here are some more authoritative and detailed explanations:

Car and Driver

AAA

If you can see the sides of your own car in your side view mirrors, you (not the car’s designers) have created entirely unnecessary blind spots. When the side mirrors are properly adjusted, vehicles passing you on either side will move seamlessly from the rear view mirror to the side view, then as they leave the side view they’ll appear in your peripheral vision out the window. You should be able to see almost everything 180 degrees behind you. Side and rear pillars may temporarily block part of a vehicle, but not all of it, not even small things like motorcycles.

Unfortunately, >95% of people believe for some reason that they have to see the sides of their car. Then they complain about blind spots.

I know this post will be followed by a chorus of people insisting that this doesn’t work in their car. And, of course, I haven’t driven every car ever made, so I’m not claiming that there are no cars with unavoidable blind spots. But I do drive rental cars pretty regularly, and since learning the proper way to adjust mirrors (also from Car Talk) many years ago, I can make the following statements quite confidently about dozens of makes and models, domestic and imported:

[ul]
[li]No ordinary sedan I have driven had a blind spot that couldn’t be eliminated by proper mirror adjustment. [/li]
[li]The only vehicles I have driven with unfixable blind spots were SUVs or minivans. (Sorry, I can’t remember models.) But even those were rare. And IIRC, they usually had little wide-angle convex mirrors outside the main side mirror, factory installed. [/li][/ul]

Learning how to adjust and use the mirrors correctly takes a little getting used to, but once you do, driving is so much better. You can really see everything and don’t have to worry as much. I don’t understand why it’s not taught in driver’s ed.

However, the resistance to it is unbelievable. I don’t recall ever getting into a rental car and finding the mirrors properly adjusted. I’ve explained the technique to several people, but only a handful have adopted it. My wife and stepson did, but not my father or most of the friends whom I’ve told about it. I’m not surprised (just a little disappointed) that so many Dopers have bought in to the myth of the blind spot.

So I’m urging my fellow Dopers, who I believe are smarter than the average bear, to give it a shot with an open mind. Read the instructions on the AAA page, and try it for at least a week. It may be a little disorienting at first, but I believe you’ll find when you get used to it that you’ll have much more confidence and comfort on the road.

42

No kidding. It’s those large C-pillars! A nicely styled car, but those blind spots are huge.

Not any more, I no longer need to because I stick rectangular convex mirrors on my side mirrors. I started putting them, 1½" x 2¼", on my motorcycles over 30 years ago. Riding motorcycles on San Francisco city streets, things change quickly. Not having to turn my head away from forward is a great advantage.

I would always say, riding a motorcycle on Mission Street through the Mission District (there’s a difference!) during heavy traffic times is one way to test how skilled a rider one is. Blind spot mirrors allow you to keep your head facing forward.

Then I put those on my cars, too, and I’ll never go back. I now use the larger rectangles, 2½" x 3¾", and they are great. Been using those over 15 years.

Examples –
1½" x 2¼": http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/KSO1/CW022/N0310.oap?ck=Search_blind+spot+mirrors_-1_-1&keyword=blind+spot+mirrors
2½" x 3¾": http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/KSO1/CW072/N0310.oap?ck=Search_blind+spot+mirrors_-1_-1&keyword=blind+spot+mirrors

Mount them on the inboard low corner, basically to cover where you’d see the side of your car in the mirror – essentially, the unused area of the side mirrors.

These aren’t for everyone, some people get wigged out by them there, but if you can use them they are a great aid. Be sure to “calibrate” them and you by driving on the freeway and purposefully putting a car in your normal blind spot. Voila! You can easily spot it in the blind spot mirror.

43

Or try what commasense says but it still won’t give you 100% coverage, whereas the blind spot mirrors do give 100% coverage.

44

Speaking for me who agreed with him, not for Quartz …

If one has a tall torso and / or sits very upright, one will find their eye level is at the center or upper third of the center rearview mirror.

I’m not looking up at it, I’m looking across and slightly down at it. As a result, the mirror completely obstructs a section of road at about the 1:30 o’clock position. Which is perfectly positioned and sized to hide entire cars sitting at 90 degree intersections.

45

How about “wide ute”?

“Ute” is a common slang short form for “utility vehicle.” The cars he’s describing are the ones with the bulbous shape. My wife, the polar antithesis of a soccer Mom contemptuously calls them “fat-ass vans”. It’s not clear to me whether she’s describing the vehicle, the typical driver, or their typical driving style. Probably all three.
Bottom line about vocabulary: When in doubt, assume you’re looking at crappy typing on a damn phone or keyboardless tablet, not a new coinage. Which crappy typing is aided and abetted by a deranged spellchecker.

46

I don’t understand why the center rear-view mirrors are not made to give a panoramic view. I have never seen this as standard equipment in any car, although there are aftermarket versions available.

I never do. I use the method described in post #3 and the coverage I get from peripheral vision and the three mirrors covers anything I could see by turning my head. If you have to turn your head you probably have your side mirrors set to see the side of your car. I know where the side of my car is.

47

I’m really not trying to be snarky or singling you out; I basically agree with what you’re saying. I just want to mention that that only works if there is only 1 lane over there. If there’s more than one lane, without a head turn you can’t see traffic migrating into the same real estate to which you’re headed.

48

:facepalm:
That’s the worst advice I’ve heard.

Please shoulder check when changing lanes.

Aaaand – don’t use your fog lights instead of headlights.

Signed,
A motorcycle rider.

49

A panoramic view of what? The mirrors aren’t going to show you what’s behind your c-pillars.

50

Precisely. I indeed am tall and have a tall torso; I am also relatively short in the arms, so cannot adjust the rake back.

51

Valid point, but this can go on infinitely. If you turn your head to look two lanes over, then there’s a lot of time for something to happen right in front of you, etc., etc.

Are your C pillars so fat they can hide an entire car that’s right behind you?

52

Except in Australia, where the term is common and used for a style that never really caught on in North America. The closest equivalents are the old Chevrolet El Caminos and the newer Subaru BRAT/Baja or perhaps Chevy Avalanche, though that’s more of a truck.
Otherwise, people don’t typically use Highlanders for “utility.”

I was told "always turn your head, but be aware that you can subconsciously turn the wheel at the same time, so practice keeping it straight.

And yeah, wide pillars rarely block an entire car, but they can block motorcyclists.

53

I rode motorcycles for about 15 years and I am probably more aware of them than the average driver. Again, the way my mirrors are set I can see things in the mirrors that I might not be able to see if I turned my head around Exorcist-style and looked at the C pillar.

Frankly the best solution to this is to always be aware of what is happening on all sides, rather than being oblivious until the moment you decide to change lanes.

54

Has anyone driven a Ford Flex? How is it?

55

One way to avoid blind spots would be with video cameras.

Not so far-fetched. My car has a wide-angle, rear-facing video camera which eliminates several blind spots. Only problem is it turns off when you are moving forward.

But you still have to remember to use them. Our local drawbridges, which used to have an attendant at each to raise & lower the bridge plus watch for safety issues, have all been replaced with multiple video cameras, microphones, and speakers, all connected to a remote operator.

The Dept. of Transportation says all angles are covered and there are no blind spots, but that hasn’t stopped two incidents in the last few years. One involved a car still on the drawbridge as it went up, and the other crushed a car that didn’t move back far enough when the counterweight came down. Both accidents could have been avoided if the remote operator merely looked at the real-time video, or in one case, out the window.

So the moral of the story is you can eliminate all the blind spots, but you can’t force people to look.

56

Odd – I have a tendency to pull the wheel in the same direction…

57

You mean the AAA page that tells you to adjust your mirrors so you can see your car?

58

The outward-facing mirror technique is a good one and when I have tried it I agree that it gives an excellent view of my surroundings.

With that said, I won’t use it: I really don’t want to alter anything so fundamental in the way I drive. I’m a graybeard and don’t want to change a technique that has been set in stone for me for decades.

I drive a rental about once a month for work, and they are always different cars with different shapes and different kinds of blind spots: it’s bad enough parking parallel to the curb when the base of the windows is not horizontal; I can’t imagine not doing a careful blind spot check in an unfamiliar vehicle.

Bonus: When I continue to do it the old way, I give folks the joy of being able to smugly tell me why I’m wrong. For some reason side mirror technique tends to bring that out in some folks.

59

That page says:

[emphasis mine]

Those head positions are roughly 12 inches from the normal driving position, meaning that you will not, in normal driving, see the side of your car. Sorry I didn’t spell that out for you. :rolleyes:

How old are you? I’m 61 now, and started using this technique maybe 15 years ago, at which time I had been driving for at least three decades. It took a few days or a week to get completely comfortable with it, and I probably continued doing the occasional head twist for some time after that. But it’s really not that hard to get used to, and the benefits are very much worth the effort.

You must hang around some unusually enlightened (if irritating) people; I’ve never heard anyone else suggest the correct mirror method to me or anyone else. If I went solely by my own experience, I could conclude I’m the only person in the world who uses it.

I don’t think I was ever smug in suggesting it to people, but I stopped trying even that after it became clear that most people are too wedded to their bad habits to even consider a better way. Now I simply bask in a warm sense of superiority whenever I see people with their mirrors adjusted incorrectly.

60

See? Now you can smile because you do something better than me. And that’s not a problem at all.