A blind spot in a vehicle or vehicle blind spot is an area around the vehicle that cannot be directly seen by the driver while at the controls, under existing circumstances. In transport, driver visibility is the maximum distance at which the driver of a vehicle can see and identify prominent objects around the vehicle. Visibility is primarily determined by weather conditions and by a vehicle's design. The parts of a vehicle that influence visibility include the windshield, the dashboard and the pillars. Good driver visibility is essential to safe road traffic.
A split rear window blind spot on a Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross.
An accident caused in part by an A-pillar blind spot.
The windshield or windscreen of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike, truck, train, boat or streetcar is the front window, which provides visibility while protecting occupants from the elements. Modern windshields are generally made of laminated safety glass, a type of treated glass, which consists of, typically, two curved sheets of glass with a plastic layer laminated between them for safety, and bonded into the window frame.
Panoramic (wrap-around) windshield on a 1959 Edsel Corsair
Split and raked windshield on a 1952 DeSoto. Note the panes of glass are flat.
The laminated glass in Vice President Richard Nixon's vehicle was nearly breached by a hostile crowd in Caracas in 1958
Automobile windshield displaying "spiderweb" cracking typical of laminated safety glass