Where is the blind spot & how do you check it when crossing a bike lane?

Basically "not checking the blind spot" means she relied totally on the mirror and she didn't turn her head to look out the side windows (front & rear).

When you are doing a driving test you are supposed to do everything by the book.

I would use my right side mirror.

When cars had no right side mirror, they had a blind spot on that side, but I don't know how to check it. It was behind the rear roof support! That's why they call it blind! Maybe if you watch for a while, the part that's blind changes.

Maybe she just didn't do anything. Maybe she didn't look in the rightside mirror and that's what he called not checking the blind spot.

You really should make a big effort not to hit a bicyclist when turning right. I've seen severral stories of them being hit by cars that are turning right.

BTW, I drive a convertible and for decades I used a convex rear view mirror (in the center) and it shows both rear side windows and everything in between. Unfortunately, the current car has a compass in the rear view mirror, and the convex mirror would cover it, so until the next car, I'm doing without it.

From what I've been told, same think backing up. Cars have cameras now, often excellent, but the testing person still wants to see you turn around to look.

In reality, I trust my camera more than my turned head.

I think the testing instructor comes to the car with a checklist of things that the student driver has omitted to do or has done wrong, plus extra space to write down other observed infractions not on the checklist.

So for checking the blind spot, the student driver should turn the head, in an exaggerated manner, to peer out of the front side window and rear side window to make sure the testing instructor cannot say the blind spot was ignored.

Of course the blind spot is on the right rear and you're supposed to turn your head to look. In reality I adjust both my mirrors to be in my blind spot rather than the side of the car and move my head to see the side of the car for perspective in the mirror. Since I started riding a motorcycle five years ago I've made it a habit to turn my head again and actually look when changing lanes to the right. Having said all that I don't see how or why you would look in the blind spot when crossing over a bike lane unless you're going real slow or are stopped. If you're moving at normal speeds you can see any bike you're approaching and cross over without any chance of one coming up behind you.

I took my first driver test in downtown Washington DC driving my father's 1967 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. That beast was nearly 20 feet long and hard to maneuver in the crowded and narrow streets of the city. It also was old enough that it only had one side view mirror on the driver's side. In those days the mirror was small and didn't stick out a foot like they do now. You had to turn your head in both directions when changing lanes because the one mirror was mostly useless.

We also had to parallel park between two cones to pass the test. These days parallel parking is not required, at least in Virginia. When we arrived at the testing station after the road test, the test instructor told me to pull over rather than park between the cones. He said there's no way he could parallel park that monster and he didn't want to fail me for that!

When I first started driving (1961) I lived in Philadelphia. You had to be able to parallel park or you'd just drive around forever. I could get into some rather tight spots others would pass up.

I don't recall the last time I did it. Five years at least, maybe 10 or

1. Not sure how well I'd do since out of practice.

If you live anywhere near a medium sized city you still have to parallel park, expecially if you go downtown or to government bureaus. Parking on the street is necessary for urban areas. I live in the Hampton Roads area of SE Virginia and still have to park on the street in many places.

I could do that really well when I drove big cars. I just KNEW where the edges were from decades of experience. The Corolla is very different. Even though it's much smaller I have no idea about the edges and always guess wrong.

What REALLY drives me nuts about the 2013 Corolla: too many blind spots. Headrests. Pillars. Can't raise seat high enough to compensate for the decreased glass at the lower edge of the windows. When I contemplate a lane change or turn I do multiple head swivels, especially in parking lots where I KNOW drivers are only looking for empty spaces and pedestrians are only looking at their phones.

It never occurred to me that modern cars have much less seeability (!) than older ones; if I'd thought about it I might have chosen a different car. Probably not, though -- they ALL seem to look like that and I chose the Corolla for reliability.

I should practice for a while; it's shameful losing a skill.

badgolferman snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote

By Right Rear I'm assuming you mean behind the C pillar?

If so, I'm familiar that many people "say" that's the blind spot. But if you adjust your mirror correctly, that spot it NOT blind.

You can test it easily with two people.

1. You're the driver. Adjust mirrors so they are LOW and INSIDE.
2. By LOW, I mean you wouldn't see a person's hat who was on the right.
3. By INSIDE, I mean your mirror is an inch or two AWAY from the car metal

Now, have a person with an object in each outstreched hand simulate a car.

1. When they're BEHIND the vehicle - you see them in the rear-view mirror
2. As they walk toward the side - you start to see them in the right mirror
3. They only disappear when they get past the B pillar across from you.

There is no blind spot (other than directly across to the passenger window) looking directly at the mirror itself at the same time.

So there is no blind spot that I can tell. At no point can a person walk around your car without you seeing them (as long as they "act like a car with outstretched hands" and as long as they get as close to the car as they would dare if they were a car).

That's why I had asked the question. There is no blind spot.

Although you have to LOOK into the mirror at all times to confirm that.

The only time the head has to be physically turned is when the person with outstretched hands passes the B pillar (walking from back to front).

Therefore I "think" that's what they're referring to as the blind spot. But I don't know that.

Which is why I am asking.

I'm going to agree since a vehicle is much faster than a bike so the bike will always have been in FRONT of you if it made it into that spot directly to the right of you at the time you made the turn right onto the cross st.

My driver test car was a Chrysler New Yorker! 440. Hemi. Vroom! I think the gas seemed like it was in gallons per mile though.

But it was less than fifty cents in those days per gallon. Remember two-digit prices?

I used to be able to back up by turning my body. I can't do that anymore.

Can you?

I don't know your vehicle but it's a real problem. As a cyclist (and driver) I can say it happens more than you might imagine. Typically:

I have never had a passenger in my current car and someday will remember to take the passenger head rest off. In parking lots and such when you're looking for things coming from the side it creates a huge blind spot.

You can slide the front passenger seat back like a passenger with very long legs is sitting there, and recline the seat's back all the way like the passenger is looking at the sunroof.

All my passengers have long legs :-(

I should remove the rear-seat headrests, but it's my OWN that bothers me the most -- I have to tilt my body to the right in order to see around the damn thing. Parking lots are the worst -- the bastards can come at you from all sides and just because the path was clear two seconds ago doesn't mean that it's clear NOW.

I didn't really appreciate the seeability of the 1988 Caddy that tried to kill me. There are always tradeoffs, right?

I try to make it a point to back into parking spots. I feel it's much safer getting out.

I've done the same, but technology has changed that.

Most cars have rather good cameras, but many now have cross traffic warnings too. I find that safer than pulling forward when parked next to a behemoth pickup that blocks the view.

I get a good view on the screen and beeps from both cars and pedestrians before I can see them.

Many cars don't have back-up cameras, and even though they are mandated on new cars, I'm sure that looking back will be part of the test for many years to come, due to the number of cars made without cameras (they were mandated in 2016 I think).

Not me... even if I had some sort of back-up camera, I'd prefer to see behind me instead. I've driven my grandfather's 2014 RAV-4 with a back-up camera, and I don't particularly trust it.

Then again, my older cars have much smaller blind spots, smaller b-pillars, and larger windows. Modern cars, particularly SUV's, are particularly difficult to see out of when you turn around.

In Ohio, they place out 5 cones, and you start with the front bumper at the first cone. Four of the cones are arranged in a rectangle, and the fifth one is ahead of them in the center. When you pull into the traffic cone rectangle, the instructor advises you to pull to the left or right, then you stop with your rear bumper at the front cone, and back through to the beginning. I guess this simulates parallel parking.

Same applies to Pittsburgh. I still do it fairly regularly.

Larger modern cars, especially SUV's, are far worse. Corolla was probably a good choice, but all modern cars have worse visibility. During the summer, when I regularly drive old cars (right now is a 1969 Impala), I can parallel park with ease. Up to the 90's, most cars still had good visibility... not as much now.