Driver’s ed teachers are always telling students to keep their eyes on the road, but exactly where are students supposed to look? If you are always looking straight ahead of you, it is not possible to see everything that you need to see to avoid a collision. If you do this, then every time someone passes you, turns in front of you, or merges into your lane, it would seem that the car appeared out of nowhere. Driving safely means keeping track of the cars in front of you, behind you, and on both sides, which means that you should keep your eyes on the road ahead of you, except when you are looking in your rear-view mirror or side view mirrors. Even when you do this, some parts of the area around your car are harder to see than others; these difficult-to-see places are called blind spots, and they often play a role in collisions, especially when one of the drivers involved has little driving experience. If you have been injured in a car accident where one car was in the other’s blind spot, contact a Clintwood personal injury lawyer.
How Can You Tell Where a Vehicle’s Blind Spots are?
Your blind spots are the areas that you cannot see through your windshield, rearview mirror, or side view mirrors because the car frame or rearview mirror mount is blocking your view. To get around this problem when driving a car, all you have to do is move your body slightly to the right or the left so that your field of vision changes. Likewise, the taller you are, the smaller your blind spots are. Rear-facing cameras also help reduce blind spots. A high school student in Pennsylvania even invented a blind spot camera to mount on the hardest-to-see part of the car’s frame, but it is not commercially available yet. In other words, when driving a car, it is possible to see your blind spots if you make a reasonable effort to do so.
By contrast, commercial trucks have bigger blind spots. Learning to cope with them takes practice, which is why it is harder to get a license to drive a truck than a car. Trucks often bear signs that say, “If you can’t see my mirrors, I can’t see you,” to warn drivers not to drive in the truck’s blind spot.
Who is at Fault if an Accident Happens Because of a Car’s Blind Spots?
Insurance companies and police determine fault for car accidents on a case-by-case basis. Usually, the accident is the fault of the driver who failed to see another car in his or her blind spot. You can be liable for the accident if you intentionally drove in someone else’s blind spot, though, or if you did not notice that you were in the other car’s blind spot because you were drunk or distracted.
Contact Greg Baker, Attorneys at Law PLLC, About Car Accident Cases
The lawyers at Greg Baker Attorneys at Law PLLC serve the southwestern Virginia community in personal injury cases and other areas of the law. Contact Greg Baker, Attorneys at Law, PLLC in Clintwood, Virginia, to set up a consultation.
Sources
https://www.aarp.org/auto/driver-safety/vehicles-mirrors-blind-spots/