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Comment by fusslo | Hacker News Reader

I bought a new car this year.

It has HUGE blindspots behind the pillars (it's an SUV). They're placed in line with the crosswalk when I'm at a red light. So I have to bob my head around if I want to see anyone about to cross

the mirrors FOV also are extremely limited!

My last car was a 1998 volvo. It had side mirrors that were half convex to give you a wider FOV. I can't believe how much better it is than my 2024 SUV!

I can't understand how cars have any blindspots in 2024. Surely we have the ability to design better mirrors, more cameras, smaller pillars..

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I rented a ford ecosport a few years ago and couldnt believe how bad the forward visibility was. Huge fat pillars positioned perfectly to block the drivers view of where the car is headed when turning left at typical intersections. Now when i cross roads as a pedestrian i regularly spot the faces of drivers completely blocked by the front pillar as their vehicle careens toward me. Better hope they are paying attention during the half second window they have to apply the brake after finally seeing me. Sometimes i open an umbrella before crossing.

That's what we get if we let the market figure it out... This should be regulated by the state I think.

Wider A pillars and worse visibility has a lot to do with mandated stronger roofs. Good for rollover survivability but bad for pedestrian safety. SUVs are a ridiculous trend and are more prone to rollovers.

Pillar mounted airbags are one reason pillars got so much wider in the mid-2000s.

Those are on the B-pillars, near the driver/passenger heads - but they don't put em on the A-pillars, too, do they?

They are in A-pillars on most cars I think, as part of the overhead curtain airbag system. (They are on both of mine, anyway; I don’t have a full dataset.)

There will usually (maybe it's mandated?) be a little symbol on the pillar, like this one: https://imgur.com/20lNA99

My truck has big labels letting you know there are airbags in the A-pillar.

Speculation: total car mass implies the need of increased structural support in the case of a roll. I'm also guessing it's regulated

If it's not airbags, it's crash test ratings. The death machine must only be a death machine to people on the wrong side of the line in the venn diagram depicting the set of owner and family.

Any vehicle I have ever owned has them in the A-pillar. Not sure how they would work in the B-pillar with the seatbelt and all, but I am no auto expert.

Were those flaws not obvious on the test drive? I also bought a car this year and the mirrors + pillars aren’t like that - I would say maybe we shouldn’t support manufacturers with our money who are pushing unsafe designs.

a 10 minute test drive in upstate new york does not give you the time to understand all the issues, unfortunately. quite a few things I did not realize I didn't like until about 2-3 months driving the car daily.

I would agree in general. I think that if I knew about them I would probably have evaluated other car manufacturers more closely.

In addition, the rearview mirror completely blocks an essential part of my view to the road. It is mounted too low for my height. I tried many new cars and it’s everywhere the same problem. Of course, I could lower the seat, but then my long legs require me to move further back while my arms are too short to still reach the steering wheel, even in its most outward position. So I resorted to remove the rearview mirror, which is allowed if the rear window is blind.

really? wow!

I wonder if it's a result of the Flaw of Averages problem

https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/when-u-s-air-force-disc...

Yes, I remember that article well; thanks for the link. This resonates well with me. I guess its due to “safety” optimization and a trend to aerodynamic, smaller windows. Also, the roof needs to support a much higher car weight in case of an accident, requiring more sturdy structures. I don’t know. But I am not the only one: https://tall.life/best-cars-for-tall-people/

Having went from a late 90s vehicle to a 2010, I can agree with this. The visibility out of this truck is incredibly poor compared to the one from the late 90s.

> It has HUGE blindspots behind the pillars (it's an SUV). They're placed in line with the crosswalk when I'm at a red light. So I have to bob my head around if I want to see anyone about to cross

Doesn't the angle of the pillars help with that?

My SUV is on the smaller side (Honda CR-V) and is also fairly old (2006) so maybe its pillars aren't as big as those on bigger and/or later cars.

My pillars do look pretty big, but because of their angles they actually are much less effective at hiding pedestrians (unless they are walking like a Robert Crumb character [1]) who are close enough that a collision is possible.

For the passenger side front pillar because I'm seeing it mostly from the side its apparent angle is quite far from vertical. If it blocked my view of someone's head their chest and below would be visible. If it blocked their chest their head and their hips would be visible. If it blocked their hips I'd see their chest and head.

For the driver side front pillar I'm seeing it from about equally from the back and side, so its apparent angle is not as far from vertical is that of the passenger front pillar. That does make it better at blocking views of pedestrians.

If the pedestrian is close it still won't be able to block all of them, but with that pillar I think the distance at which it is possible to block all of them is close enough that they could move into range of a collision fairly quickly.

However, because that pillar is close to my head it doesn't take much change in my eye position to make a significant change to the location of the volume of space that is blocked.

In particular I don't have to bob my head. Just rotating it moves my eyes enough that if someone was in the region where they are close enough to be in danger but are blocked from my peripheral vision when looking ahead they would not be in the blocked region when my head is turned to look toward that side.

I've done some tests of this just sitting in a busy parking lot watching as pedestrians walk by or near my car to see if/when I lose sight of them.

> My last car was a 1998 volvo. It had side mirrors that were half convex to give you a wider FOV. I can't believe how much better it is than my 2024 SUV!

My mirrors are flat, but I bought a small stick on convex mirror that I stuck on my driver side mirror. With that when something comes from behind on the driver's side it is always visible in at least one of {center mirror, convex side mirror, flat side mirror}. On the passenger side when something leaves the center mirror it is visible in the side mirror so I didn't need to add a convex mirror.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Truckin-Crumb-Laminated-Blacklight-Po...

Return the car and buy one without those defects?

Pretty sure crash test requirements are the cause of a lot of the shrinking sight lines in modern cars so any newer car is going to have these kinds of problems to some degree.

Those crash test requirements should take into account what you’re crashing into :) it’s all the protection for the car occupants and none for those in the real word.

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