Blind spot (vehicle)

Blind spot (vehicle)

A blind spot in a vehicle is an area around the vehicle that cannot be directly observed by the driver while at the controls, under existing circumstances.[1] Blind spots exist in a wide range of vehicles: cars, trucks, motorboats and aircraft.

Contents

Motor vehicles

The blue car's driver sees the green car through his mirrors but cannot see the red car without turning to check his blind spot.

As one is driving an automobile, blind spots are the areas of the road that cannot be seen while looking forward or through either the rear-view or side mirrors. The most common are the rear quarter blind spots, areas towards the rear of the vehicle on both sides. Vehicles in the adjacent lanes of the road that fall into these blind spots may not be visible using only the car's mirrors. Rear quarter blind spots can be:

  • checked by turning one's head briefly (risking rear-end collisions),
  • eliminated by reducing overlap between side and rear-view mirrors, or
  • reduced by installing mirrors with larger fields-of-view.

Other areas that are sometimes called blind spots are those that are too low to see behind, in front, or to the sides of a vehicle, especially those with a high seatinpot.[2]

Motorboats

A blind spot in a (large) motorboat

Blind spots also exist in front of boats.[3] When the boat accelerates, the bow rises, increasing the size of the blind spot. Large vessels can have up to several hundreds of meters of blind spot. To address this, cameras are sometimes placed in the front of the vessel to cover the missing field of view.

References

  1. ^ "Blind spot definition". Thefreedictionary.com. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/blind+spot. Retrieved 2011-11-13. 
  2. ^ smartmicro - Blind Spot Detection
  3. ^ "State v. Warren Haven". State of Maine. 2002-02-28. http://www.courts.state.me.us/court_info/opinions/documents/02me38ha.htm. Retrieved 2009-10-06. 

External links


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