Car Blindspots Keep Getting Bigger & Bigger

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Last Updated on: 27th June 2025, 08:28 pm

It’s no surprise — when you look at how vehicles keep getting bigger and bigger, it can’t come as a shock that blindspots have been getting bigger. And, yes, that’s exactly what a new study from the Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS) tells us.

“The drivers of America’s most popular cars can see less and less of the road every year — and regulators aren’t stepping in,” Streetsblog summarizes. “A new study has found that the blind spots on some of America’s best-selling cars are growing at a disturbingly fast rate — but pedestrian and bicyclist visibility itself remains a blind spot for federal regulators who consistently fail to mandate that vehicles be designed to reduce the soaring death rates among vulnerable road users.”

It’s not even about different models with different designs coming to market. It’s popular models gradually getting worse visibility over time. Here’s an egregious example: the Honda CR-V. In the CR-V of 1997, drivers could see 68% of the road area 10 meters in front of them. Maybe not amazing, but not bad. In the CR-V of 2022, drivers could see only 28% of the road area 10 meters in front of them!

Hood heights have gotten higher, “A” pillars have gotten thicker, side mirrors have gotten larger, and all of this has led to worse visibility. How about a visualization? Here’s how the blindspots of the Chevrolet Suburban have grown from 2006 to 2023:

Forward visibility has been declining, and, incidentally, pedestrian and bicyclist deaths have been rising in the same time period. Pedestrian deaths have risen by 37% in 25 years and bicyclist deaths have risen by 42%.

“The across-the-board decrease in visibility for this small group of models is concerning,” said David Harkey, IIHS president. “We need to investigate whether this is a broader trend that may have contributed to the recent spike in pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities.”

And here’s a shocker: there’s no federal test requiring that automakers measure blindspots. So, yeah, it’s just not important, apparently.

“The Institute had to develop an entire new method just to measure visibility with easy-to-use portable camera rigs, since previous techniques required cumbersome testing procedures, poring over engineering drawings, or even utilizing lasers,” Streetsblog adds.

The good news is that cameras and ADAS (advanced driver assist systems) have been improving visibility and deterring accidents in some cases, but that doesn’t change that poor visibility — especially looking forward — is a huge problem. One typically isn’t going to rely on camera feeds except when backing up or trying to park. And, while ADAS definitely prevents some accidents, if a bicyclist or pedestrian is about to cross the road in front of you and you step on the accelerator, chances are, you’re going to hit that person — hard.

While a lot has been done to make cars safer, especially for the people inside of them, and advances in sensor technology have helped to prevent accidents, the lack of concern for blindspots and the fact that they look like they’re on steroids now are major problems the auto industry should be working to address. Hopefully this IIHS study and its plans for continued work on this topic will help to make that happen.