WINDSCREEN PILLAR DANGERS IN THE NEWS AGAIN
03 February 2006 - Safe Speed

The Times today reports on the ongoing scandal of the risks to road safety posed by ever-thickening windscreen pillars obscuring drivers'' vision.

Increasing standards of car passenger cell strength have led directly to thicker windscreen pillars (also known as ''A pillars''). At junctions these modern strong and thick windscreen pillars can totally obscure other vehicles, pedestrians, motorcyclists or cyclists. It''s possible in the ''wrong'' conditions for a crash to occur without the conflicting vehicle ever having been observed. This is one way in which ''looked but failed to see'' (LBFTS) crashes take place. Such crashes appear to be quite commonplace and LBFTS is
the 3rd most frequent crash contributory factor.

Motorcyclists are especially at risk because their visual profile means that they can be more readily obscured, while their speed makes the zone of conflict larger. LBFTS crashes involving motorcycles are so common that the motorcycle community have their own term for this crash type. They call them ''SMIDSY'' which is short for ''Sorry Mate, I didn''t see you''. These words are (supposedly) spoken by drivers to the fallen motorcyclist immediately after the crash.

Screen pillars obstructing driver''s vision driver''s first made headlines last year after Safe Speed''s Paul Smith approached Bike magazine to highlight the issue. As a direct response to this publicity, the Department for Transport (DfT) commissioned a small research project from TRL Limited (formerly Transport Research Laboratory). This research project has yet to report.

Previously unreported simulator research by the University of Minnesota suggests that the risks are very considerable. In tests drivers were divided into four groups based on their observation techniques. In the poorest group almost 70% of drivers crashed because of screen pillar obscuration and even in the best group 11% of drivers crashed.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign (www.safespeed.org.uk) said: ''The official response to this serious issue is unfortunately typical of modern weak road safety thinking. It''s very important that we warn road users of the risks and explain how best to manage them. It''s all too easy to attempt to look around the screen pillar and in the process to ''opposite track'' the movements of a conflicting road user. Very few road users understand the issues in sufficient detail.''

''I have been working hard to get the issue given the attention it desperately needs. I set up smidsy.org.uk in 2002, but there was a bit of a breakthrough when I got Bike magazine interested in the issue in 2004.''

Speaking in 2004, Rich Beach, News Editor of Bike magazine said: ''When Paul Smith raised the screen pillar issue with us, we were astonished by how little research has been done on the subject, but in the course of investigating and writing the Bike magazine feature, it became clear that it is a huge problem, and one that we need to draw attention to.''

Safe Speed recommends the following ''coping strategies'' for drivers and motorcyclists:

Car drivers:
============

* Car drivers have the greatest responsibility - at least until we have better designed screen pillars.

* DON''T make a ''glance check'' then go.

* DON''T Look around the back of the screen pillar - always look around the front. This is because of the risk of ''opposite tracking'' another road user on a conflicting path. Take the case of the offside pillar - if another road user is moving towards you, and you move your head right to look around the screen pillar the risk of opposite tracking is considerable. On the other hand, moving your head left to look around the screen pillar is unlikely to opposite track another road user on a conflicting path. An easy way to remember this is to always enhance your view through the windscreen, not the side windows.

* DO be aware of the screen pillar obscuring your vision.

* DO - And this is the best tip of all - always look twice. If another road user was behind the pillar on either check, then there''s an excellent chance that they will have emerged when you make the second check. Normal procedure for pulling out of a side road, left, into a main road is as follows: Look right, look left, look right again, look left and drive off looking in the direction of travel.

* Tell your friends.

Motorbike riders:
=================

* Always be aware of the risk of not being seen and never forget that it will hurt if someone does manage to pull into your path.

* Look at emerging drivers - if part of his face appears behind the screen pillar it''s possible that you can''t be seen.

* Assume that emerging vehicles may pull into your path and position for maximum margin. Usually this means taking a position towards the crown of the road if someone might emerge from the left.

* Don''t assume that you have had eye contact with a driver from 20 feet away or more. It might look like eye contact, but you STILL can''t be sure that he''s seen you.

* Don''t assume that because you have high visibility clothing and your headlight on that you are visible - if there''s a screen pillar in the way, visibility aids don''t work.

* Watch the wheels of potentially conflicting stationary vehicles. You can recognise wheels starting to turn sooner than you can recognise other movements.

* Tell your friends.

www.safespeed.org.uk

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