Blind spots

Blind spots & shoulder check 

When you look at your right mirror from the driver seat, you see the right side of your car and the road on your right side.  

When you look at the left mirror from the driver seat, you see the left side of your car and the road on your left side. 

When you look at the rear view mirror of your car, you see behind you and the road behind your car through the rear windscreen.

There are two spots on either side of the car that cannot be seen in any of the mirrors of your car. 

Those two spots are called ‘Blind Spots’. Blind spots are right behind the frames of the car on either side.  

In order to see and check the blind spots, we need to do an action which is called ‘Shoulder Check’.

How do we do a shoulder check?

Torso, arms and shoulders stay straight and we only turn our head 90 degrees over our shoulders to do shoulder checks to the left or right.

Common mistakes when doing a shoulder check:

  • Twisting or bending torso and shoulders 
  • Doing the shoulder check with a slow motion
  • Staring at the blind spots

When do we do a shoulder check?

Anytime the direction of the car changes, we need to go through three stages: 

  • Looking at the Rear view and Right Mirror (M)
  • Turning the Indicator on (I)
  • Doing a Shoulder Check (S)

So what are those occasions?

  1. Getting to the road 
  2. Getting off the road
  3. Turning left (if you move over to the left for the left turn)
  4. Turning right (if you move over closer to the centre for the right turn)
  5. Changing lanes

With all these scenarios we need to go through the three stages (Mirrors, Indicator, Shoulder check). In order to remember this, remember MIS.
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