Millions of vehicles have unexpected, dangerous front blind zone

Re:Millions of vehicles have unexpected, dangerous front bli... by mindslight on Sunday February 09, 2020 @02:02PM (#22283689)

The obvious solution is to raise the ground clearance even further! But seriously, what else would one expect from taking trucks, customarily driven by people engaged in heavy work and painfully aware of their awkwardness, and marketing them to checked-out suburban consumers? The larger the vehicle, the more you need to inspect around it before moving - like when renting a moving truck, it's good to have a friend that can pop out and spot for you. People that take hopping in their vehicle and zooming off for granted are not going to do this work every time. Although of all the bad results from the ignorant zeitgeist of the early oughts, this is pretty minor.

I had thought this article was going to be about A pillars. With modern ones I feel like there is an insufferable blind spot right in the arc of my turn. I know about increasing fuel economy and crash standards, but it feels like there has got to be another way.

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Re:Millions of vehicles have unexpected, dangerous front bli... by carterehsmith on Sunday February 09, 2020 @04:49PM (#22284558)

As for the A-pillars, I read about a solution somewhere, goes like this:

- There is a camera on the 'out' side of the A-pillar;

- There is a screen on the 'in' side of the A-pillar;

- The car tracks driver's gaze and projects the camera view on the A-pillar screen, so as to stitch together the views from the windshield, A-pillar screen, and the side window.

The result being, it looks like the A-pillar is not there at all.

I wonder if some car already has that. Iirc some teenager presented similar solution on a science fair.

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Re:Millions of vehicles have unexpected, dangerous front bli... by Piskvorrr on Monday February 10, 2020 @08:28AM (#22288889)

TBH, I am thinking of doing a poor man's version of this with a RPi Zero, a fish-eye lens, and a small display (times two, one for both sides). Not sure how well it would mesh with the airbags, crumple zones et al, though; camera-to-display latency might be an issue, too.

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Re:Millions of vehicles have unexpected, dangerous front bli... by stevenicr on Monday February 10, 2020 @04:02AM (#22287486)

I had this idea years ago when teaching a girl to drive some. She had to put seats all the way as far as they go, and with several vehicles she would not drive them because the thickness made the blind spot too big for her comfort, on both sides. Not sure if this has to do with airbags being there with some vehicles? Anyway, I had seen an article about flexible led screens, bracelets maybe? and thought to put them on those blind spots with a few cameras on the outside. I wasn't sure the idea would be popular, or who to even present it to. Glad to see others talking about it and doing it!

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Re:Millions of vehicles have unexpected, dangerous front bli... by Gibbon1 on Sunday February 09, 2020 @04:01PM (#22284278)

I totally see that with my newer car. And the sloping windshield also creates glare in the late afternoon that makes it hard to see pedestrians.

I think driver viability has be seriously compromised in the last 20 years. And suspect that we've only be rating cars by how safe they are for their occupants. Instead of over all. Not sure but I think pedestrian deaths are up sharply in the last ten years.

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Re:Millions of vehicles have unexpected, dangerous front bli... by rad_gruchalski on Sunday February 09, 2020 @06:06PM (#22284960)

> Not sure but I think pedestrian deaths are up sharply in the last ten years.

Definitely not in the EU: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/sites/roadsafety/...

„In 2016, 5.320 pedestrians were killed in road accidents in the EU (excluding Lithuania and Slovakia), which is 21% of all road fatalities. During the decade 2007-2016, in the European Union, pedestrian fatalities were reduced by 36%, while the total number of fatalities was reduced by almost 41%.”

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Re:Millions of vehicles have unexpected, dangerous front bli... by Gibbon1 on Sunday February 09, 2020 @09:29PM (#22285924)

In the US I find from this article that they are up sharply.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/01/pedestrian-deaths-rea...

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