Auto collisions can strike any driver at any time. No matter how safe of a driver you are, every vehicle is flawed with “blind spots,” areas of the car that you won’t be able to see very well as the driver. The limited visibility caused by these blind spots can increase your risk of experiencing a collision, although you are not entirely at their mercy. There are a few habits you can adopt to reduce your risk of succumbing to the effects of blind spots. To learn more about how to enhance your driving safety, see the guide below.
What is a Blind Spot?
The blind spots of your vehicle are areas immediately surrounding the body of the car that the driver cannot see. Although the rear-review and side-view mirrors help relieve limited visibility, these spots still exist, and introduce unique safety hazards to motorists who do not know how to work around the problem.
Typically, a driver’s blind spots are over their right and left shoulders. They are also often attributed to the pillars of the car’s body, which block a substantial amount of visibility into the surrounding environment. Still, blind spots are not caused exclusively by the driver’s positioning or the vehicle body. Passengers and objects stored or mounted in the vehicle can also compromise the driver’s visibility.
The most common types of car accidents that are caused due to blind spots include:
- Pedestrian collisions
- Sideswipes
- Rollover accidents
- Collisions involving bicycles and motorcyclists
To avoid becoming a victim (or the cause) of such incidents, follow the tips below to work around your blind spots.
How to Protect Yourself from Blind Spot Accidents
Fortunately, there are numerous steps you can take to increase your safety while driving, despite the blind spots that may be obstructing your view. These steps are:
- Adjust your side mirrors. As mentioned earlier, your side-view mirrors are integral to compensating the view lost to blind spots. Although you may not get rid of the blind spot entirely, you can maximize visibility by adjusting your mirrors appropriately.
- To attain the best positioning for your mirrors, lean as far to the right or left (right, if adjusting the right mirror, and left, for the left mirror) as you can. Shift the mirror so that it barely shows the vehicle’s body. This will give you a broader perspective and provide maximum visibility.
- Add blind spot mirrors to your existing side-view mirrors.
- Swap your standard side-view mirrors with convex mirrors to increase your field of view.
- Slow down when driving to give yourself more time to perceive environmental conditions surrounding your vehicle.
Taking these steps will significantly increase your safety when driving, despite your existing blind spots. Still, there is no guarantee that other drivers will take the same precautions. If you are still injured in a blind spot collision, contact a car accident lawyer to resolve your case. Because you did everything in your power to remain safe on the road, you should not be responsible for covering the costs associated with the crash. Get in touch with a car accident lawyer today to file your claim.
