1 Vehicle backover injuries and deaths occur when someone, without a driver’s knowledge or awareness, is positioned behind a veh
icle as the driver is backing out of a driveway or other parking spot. Most victims of backovers are the elderly and children. 2 To add to the tragedy of backover injuries and deaths, the driver is often a neighbor or relative. When a child is the victim, the driver may even be the child’s mother or father.
3 Since most of these heartbreaking incidents occur in private driveways rather than on the road, they are not typically included in traffic-crash fatality data. Therefore, experts often don’t agree on the exact number of children injured or killed in backover incidents each year.
4 But even one child who dies from a backover incident is one too many. Awareness and understanding of the problem are the first steps toward reducing the risk of backover deaths.
All Vehicles Have Blind Spots
5 In the case of a backover incident, the blind spot is the place behind your vehicle that you cannot see in the rear or side view mirrors — or even by craning your neck out the driver’s side window. Generally speaking, the larger the vehicle, the larger the blind spot.
6 Blind spots for shorter drivers tend to be significantly larger as well. In addition, the elevation of the driver’s seat, the shape of a vehicle’s windows and mirrors, and the slope of a driveway can affect the size of the blind spot behind a vehicle. In addition, the smaller stature of children can make them particularly difficult for a driver to see when backing up.
What inference does the passage support regarding blind spots?
A) Blind spots are larger in small, compact automobiles.
B) The vehicle driver is to blame for backover accidents.
C) Blind spots have only recently become a widespread problem.
D) Some readers may be unfamiliar with the phrase blind spots.
Answer: D-Some readers may be unfamiliar with blind spots.
Explanation:
Blind spots have been an issue for decades of driving. Newer cars now come equipped with back up cameras and this can help reduce the fatalities that lead to people getting run over in cars. However, if a person is rushing to leave they may not look out their camera or mirrors and still run over a child or elderly person.
Blind spots are touched over in some drivers education classes and driver license tests. There needs to be more teaching and understanding about blind spots in all cars. When passing in a vehicle, the car or semi truck ahead of you may have a blind spot and can't see you coming. This causes many accidents on roadways each year.
