In general, you don’t have to worry about your blind spots when you’re motoring around city streets and single-lane roads. There is an area radiating back from the rear quarter panels of both sides of your car that neither your side mirror nor your rearview mirror shows. Your rearview mirror helps you see directly behind you, and your side view mirrors help you see cars behind you coming up on either side.īut - and this is a big but! - those side mirrors don’t catch everything. You can also easily turn your head right or left to look out your side windows to see cars that are right next to you. When you face forward, you can see everything in front of you. To understand the blind spot and why it exists, it helps to visualize yourself behind the wheel. The blind spots are two areas alongside your car that, as a driver, you cannot see with your mirrors. When driver’s ed teachers talk about the blind spots, they're talking about the car, not you. But what is it, where is it, and how do you deal with it? Here’s what you need to know.

Every car has one, and in general, the bigger the vehicle, the bigger the blind spot. One of the trickiest things for a new driver to master is the blind spot. Driving forces you to keep your eyes and ears open to pay attention to so many different things at once. After all, you’re moving a piece of machinery that weighs several tons right alongside other pieces of machinery, at times at high speeds.

Learning to drive is exciting, but also challenging.

Changing lanes look over the shoulder