Blind Zone Accidents

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has estimated that there are 630,000 Lane Change/Merge crashes with 225 fatalities annually. They also found that about 60% of drivers involved in LCM crashes did not see the other vehicle, and about 30% of drivers misjudged the position or speed of the other vehicle. Although every LCM crash cannot be blamed on blind zones, blind zones are involved in every lane change/merge maneuver.

A vehicle is in your blind zone when you cannot see it with your inside mirror or peripheral vision. In order for you to safely change lanes, you must turn and look into the blind zones. You can also turn the two outside mirrors outward to look into the sides of your vehicle. This would create four smaller blind zones that would not be large enough to hide a vehicle.

This mirror setting has five major advantages.

• Turning to look into the blind zones is no longer necessary.
• Only a brief glance in the mirror is required to view the blind zone, as opposed to the longer time required when turning your head. At highway speeds, turning takes your eyes off the road for about 100 feet.
• Glancing at the mirror leaves the forward scene in your peripheral view, while turning your head completely eliminates the forward view.
• The blind zones can be easily included in your visual scanning.
• At night, glare from the outside mirrors is virtually eliminated. The reason for this is that a following car's headlamps are not visible until a car moves into the blind zone, and at that point, the high intensity portion of the headlamp's beam does not hit the mirror.