The problem lies with cars’ A-pillars — the spars at either side of the windscreen. Over the past decade these have grown massively, from thin elegant strips of metal to chunky columns several inches wide.
“It’s amazing how this issue has been overlooked,” says Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign. “We’re talking mainly about bikers, but it’s equally pedestrians, cyclists, and even car drivers. With the size of some modern A-pillars whole cars can disappear behind them.”
The irony is that the fatter A-pillars are themselves a result of the drive for safety. One of the keys to scoring highly in the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) is that the structure surrounding the passengers does not “deform” in a crash and cause injuries. Modern cars with big, stiff A-pillars retain their shape far better. The A-pillars on many new vehicles also contain side airbags, again increasing size.
“Modern cars are fantastic at protecting the occupants of the vehicle, and this is where manufacturers have spent most of their safety budgets — to the detriment of ‘outsiders’,” says Jeff Stone, a spokesman for the British Motorcyclists Federation.
While the problem is apparent to anyone who has driven a modern car and compared it with one from a decade ago, almost no official research has been carried out into the problem. However, Department for Transport figures show that 20% of crashes are caused by drivers “looking but not seeing”.
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At the end of last year What Car? magazine and the opticians Dollond & Aitchison carried out tests on 50 new vehicles to rank them in order of visibility. They positioned lamps where the driver’s eyes would be, then measured the shadows created by the A-pillars on a screen 23 metres away (a car’s stopping distance at 30mph, according to the Highway Code). Researchers found the thickest pillars could easily obscure an entire car at that distance.
The worst-performing vehicle was the Vauxhall Meriva mid-size MPV, though similar “one-box” designs fared badly. This is because they often position the windscreen far from the driver, so that the deeply raked pillars are angled along a large proportion of their peripheral vision, shielding visibility. Many also have quarter-lights, adding a second, subsidiary strut.
The best cars were the more traditional saloons, such as the Audi A4 and Ford Mondeo.
The new Seat Altea was launched after these tests but has particularly wide A-pillars. It is the first car to hide the windscreen wipers in the A-pillars rather than at the base of the windscreen, making them larger still.
Only one manufacturer has devised a radical solution to the problem. Volvo’s Safety Concept Car uses pillars that are a lattice of metal and glass, making them see-through and strong. However, it is unlikely the model will make it into production soon.
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“The design is still under evaluation but there are issues of cost, production feasibility and customer acceptance,” says a Volvo spokesman.
Earlier this month Safe Speed and the motorbike magazine Bike launched a campaign calling for more research on the issue, as well as highlighting the problem to drivers and riders.
The Euro NCAP organisation has taken on board criticism that it only tests “secondary safety” (how well your car protects after a crash) and is now preparing a new set of tests to assess primary safety: the factors that can prevent a crash happening in the first place.
One of the tests is likely to be into visibility, and in Britain the Department for Transport has commissioned research to help Euro NCAP by investigating how visibility could be measured. The three-year study, conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory, in Berkshire, has tested eight different types of car and found “considerable differences” in visibility.
Ministers will receive the report in the autumn and Euro NCAP visibility tests might not be too far behind.
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Vauxhall declined to comment but Seat insisted the Altea had deformable areas on the bonnet to protect pedestrians and that visibility was no worse than in many other cars.
NOW YOU SEE ME... THE BEST AND WORST CARS FOR VISIBILITY
Worst:
1. Vauxhall Meriva
2. Honda Jazz
3. Mazda MX-5
4. Toyota Yaris
5. VW Touran
Best:
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1. Audi A4
2. Ford Mondeo
3. Volkswagen Polo
4. Rover 25
5. Honda Civic
Source: What Car?/Dollond & Aitchison