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Blind Zones Block Drivers' Vision In Newer Vehicles, Study Shows
In some newer vehicles, blind zones are getting bigger and blocking drivers' vision. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
The blind zones of six popular passenger vehicles – Chevrolet Suburban, Ford F-150, Honda Accord, Honda CR-V, Jeep Grand Cherokee and Toyota Camry – grew substantially over the past 25 years and resulted in a decrease in forward visibility.
Those are the main take-a-ways of a new study that evaluated the role newer vehicle design plays in driver visibility, released on Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) , a nonprofit financed by the insurance industry.
The research found that in some newer vehicles, blind zones are getting bigger and blocking drivers' vision.
'The across-the-board decrease in visibility for this small group of models is concerning. We need to investigate whether this is a broader trend that may have contributed to the recent spike in pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities,' David Harkey, the Insurance Institute's president, said in a statement.
The study to assess how newer vehicle designs can block drivers' vision was conducted by the United States Department of Transportation's Volpe Center using a new technique of measuring a driver's direct area of vision around a vehicle that was developed by the Insurance Institute.
The new method uses computational software and a portable camera rig to create a blind zone map and is more efficient than traditional blind zone mapping, the Institute said.
Researchers examined and compared how the designs of the six top-selling vehicles changed over model years 1997 to 2023. Visibility reductions were most pronounced for the SUVs. Forward visibility within a 10-meter radius fell as much as 58% for three popular SUVs, according to the study.
The most dramatic reduction came for the Honda CR-V, as the vehicle's hood, mirrors and A-pillars all obstructed a greater portion of the driver's view over time. Drivers of the 1997 model were able to see 68% of the area 10 meters in front of the vehicle, while drivers of the 2022 model can see only 28%.
For the Honda CR-V (and the 2000 Suburban) the biggest changes in the blind zone were due to a higher hood that blocked more of the frontal plane and larger side mirrors that obscured the views at their front corners.
In contrast, the early models of the two cars provided relatively good visibility that fell less than 8% in later generations, researchers said. The visibility reductions for the two cars were less severe. The smallest decrease came for the Accord, which permitted the driver to see 65% of the area 10 meters in front of the vehicle in 2003 and 60% in 2023. For the Camry, visibility decreased from 61% in 2007 to 57% in 2023.
'These results are notable because we already know that the portion of SUVs in the U.S. fleet grew substantially over these years as well,' Becky Mueller, senior research engineer at the Insurance Institute, said in a statement. She led the development of the new mapping technique and is a co-author of the Volpe Center study.
'If further research confirms that these changes reflect a general change, that would suggest that declining visibility in SUVs has compounded the effects of taller, blunt-nosed vehicles that IIHS has already documented,' Mueller added.
The results of the study point to a troubling trend during the 25-year period assessed, according to the report, a time when pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities on U.S roads soared. Insurance Institute researchers noted that little is known about what role driver visibility has played in the increase, but they are in the process of conducting additional research to understand how blind zones affect pedestrian crash rates and insurance claims.
For more information about the research, click here .
