Your Car Doesn’t Have a Blind Spot
As I sat having a drink this evening with a few people, the topic of cars inevitably came up. One of the people at the table told a story of her recent car purchase, a used Sunfire. She said that she had always had a four door car and would never buy a two door for the simple fact that there wasn’t enough visibility out the back. This was reinforced by her tale of a harrowing test drive and how scary it was to drive a coupe.
The conversation reminded me of my day spent at the BMW Advanced Driver Training program. One of the first things the instructors talked about was the myth of blind spots. “Unless you are driving a Ferrari, your car does not have a blind spot, your mirrors are just improperly adjusted.” It’s one of the lessons that really stuck with me, as I have been able to apply it every time I get into a new car.
Even Canadian Direct Insurance has a page on how to properly adjust your mirrors to eliminate the “blind spot” in your car, check it out here. Try it out, it’ll take a bit of driving to get used to the new mirror positions but you’ll be surprised how much more you’ll be able to see.
A couple more related articles and examples:
http://www.smartmotorist.com/mir/mir.htm
http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/mirrors/index.html