Front Blind Zone Hazards

Note : This article is published by me on the teambhp forum as well.

Introduction :

We have seen many crashes involving SUVs and small children and these incidents are heart wrenching for anyone. In most cases, its the responsibility of the parents to take care of the child but we have seen occasions where parent or someone who's so close to the child had driven over the child as they couldn't see the child.

So, its essential for car drivers to know the risk and develop a strategy to minimize the risk.

We cannot react to a hazard, if we can't see them.

Why can't drivers see them? Blind Zones around the car cover a large area, which most drivers are unaware. The larger the car, the larger the hidden area.

Let's see the issue in detail and develop strategies to minimize risk.
Though we cannot fully address the problem, I wanted to develop and share a structured approach that helps everyone to avoid or minimize such crashes. Once we know the risk, we take better care.


Based on my analysis of all blind spot crashes with small children,below are the key observations :
1. All the crashes occur in residential areas,narrow streets, parking lots
2. The speed of the car is less than 10 kmph in all cases
3. The car is either in a stopped state or moving slowly before it crashed into the child
4. Majority of the crashes occur on the front as the car is moving forward
5. The Child is either alone or with a busy parent
6. The height of the child is less than 2-2.5 feet

The below clip is a consolidated list of many such crashes that happened in India.

The Clips will be difficult to watch as it involves kids but use it as a learning exercise to know about the risks.

Details :

In any vehicle there are 3 important areas which every driver needs to be aware of.

1. Direct Vision - The area that is directly visible to the drivers
2. Indirect Vision - The area that is visible through mirrors
3. Blind Zones/Spots - The area that is neither visible in mirrors nor can be seen directly

What are Blindspots ?

Blind spots are the areas around the vehicle that we can’t see using our mirrors or by looking directly ahead. These invisible zones can be dangerous because they hide other vehicles, pedestrians, or obstacles from your view.

Several factors contribute to the creation of blind spots. The vehicle’s shape, window pillars, and head restraints can all obscure the view.

In this article, we are focusing only on the front blind zones as the knowledge of it is very critical to avoid crashes with small children,pets in residential areas.

Front of a vehicle is a huge blindspot and not many drivers are aware of it. There are many tests done in the US but unfortunately not in India.

To understand and demonstrate, how big is a front blindspot, I had tested it in my apartment with few of my friends and results are surprising.

I had tested with 4 vehicles and I will share the testing procedure so that you can do it yourself for your vehicle.

Test Vehicles :

1. Skoda Slavia
2. Ford Ecosport
3. Kia Seltos
4. Tata Safari

Measurement approach :

To perform this test, we took drivers of average height ( 5.5 feet ).
A traffic cone ( 1 feet length ) is kept at ground level and drivers are asked to sit in their normal driving position and drive backwards until they see the spot where the cone meets the ground. They should stop the car the moment the base aligns with the windshield wipers.

Below are the results.

1. Skoda Slavia - 477.4 cm or 15.6 feet

2. Kia Seltos - 515 cm or 16.89 ~ 17 feet

3. Ford Ecosport - 361.9 cm or 11.8 feet

4. Tata Safari - 705.1 cm or 23.1 feet

As seen above, the front blindspot ranges from 12 feet to 24 feet, which is a huge area and easily a kid or a pet can be hidden inside them.

Now, we have seen incidents where drivers are turning left or right and then ran over a kid, who's playing on the road.

In our given road and city design, unfortunately its very difficult to separate play areas and vehicle pathways.

So, how to minimize risk as we turn left or right?

Now we know how big is the blindspot area, we should effectively scan the area before we turn. Once we turn without looking, we cannot always say that, we haven't seen the child.

As seen below, before we make a turn, we should scan the area ( green triangle ). If the intersection is having visibility issues, stop, look and proceed.

To conclude, below are some safety tips we can follow to reduce front blind spot accidents.

1. Recognize that blind spots exists.
2. Identify the front blind zone area for your vehicle using the above procedure.
3. Walk around the vehicle before making a move
4. If there are any kids, ensure that they're under someone's supervision and make sure you see them clearly and they're away from our blind zones.
5. Keep kids seated in the car safely and then move

Tips to teach our kids :

1. Teach your kids to observe vehicles in parking lots but never rely on them to keep themselves safe.
2. It takes just a few seconds to call it a disaster, so take no chances.
3. Just because the kid can see the driver, it doesn't mean the driver had seen the kid as well.
4. Parked vehicles can move any time. Ask kids to check for the presence of driver, engine sound, vehicle lights, smoke etc and ask to stay away from those vehicles.
5. Assume that the driver had not seen the kid.
6. Never walk on front or behind a vehicle.
7. Never play in parking lots without adult supervision.
8. Green number plates are EV and they don't make any sound and always check for driver presence.
9. Finally, just because the driver knows how to drive a car, it doesn't mean he knows, how to see and where to see to reduce risk.