The Awareness of Blind Spot Area in Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV)

Abstract

This paper is to demonstrate the awareness of blind spot area in heavy goods vehicles (HGV) towards the road user. A blind spot is an area or zone that cannot be directly observe by the driver. Usually, the weaknesses in the blind spot area resulted in accident between the vehicle as many drivers did not alert or have awareness on the blind spot area especially in heavy goods vehicle. The objective of this paper is to identify the awareness on the blind spot area in heavy goods vehicles to the road users. To achieve the objective, a questionnaire survey has been conducted to the road user. About 100 drivers randomly pick to answer the survey and they are consisting of non-truck drivers that drive a car, van and motorcycle. The results reveal that even the respondents know about the blind spot in heavy good vehicle, but the awareness in the of blind spot area still less where they mistake on the exact location of blind spot. Typically, the only zone that they know as the blind spot for heavy goods vehicle is at the back area. Therefore, it is suggested that the government to improve the awareness of blind spot areas within the drivers through restructure the system inside driving school by give more attention on the blind spot for heavy goods vehicle, make a campaign on the awareness of blind spot in heavy goods vehicle to remind again the road users about the area of blind spots, and establish a standard direct vision in heavy goods vehicle. Keywords: Blind spot, heavy good

Identifying Interactive Factors That May Increase Crash Risk between Young Drivers and Trucks: A Narrative Review

“…Truck driver visibility is impeded by the size of the vehicle. Trucks have greater blind spot areas than passenger vehicles, and impaired visibility in these areas increases crash risk [16]. A blind spot area is defined as an area around the perimeter of the vehicle that cannot be seen by the driver using standard windows or mirrors [17].…”

“…Truck drivers have four main blind spot areas: immediately in front of the truck; behind the door on the driver side of the vehicle, the length of the passenger side of the vehicle, and directly behind the truck. To minimise crash risk associated with lane changing or merging, other motorists need to avoid driving in these blind spot areas [16] and need to be mindful of the intentions of truck drivers if they are situated in a truck blind spot. Although there is little research into motorists' knowledge of truck and heavy vehicle blind spots, a study conducted in Malaysia found that when questioned on their knowledge of the location of truck blind spots, less than half of the 100 surveyed respondents were aware of blind spot locations to the front, left and right perimeters of a heavy vehicle [16].…”

“…To minimise crash risk associated with lane changing or merging, other motorists need to avoid driving in these blind spot areas [16] and need to be mindful of the intentions of truck drivers if they are situated in a truck blind spot. Although there is little research into motorists' knowledge of truck and heavy vehicle blind spots, a study conducted in Malaysia found that when questioned on their knowledge of the location of truck blind spots, less than half of the 100 surveyed respondents were aware of blind spot locations to the front, left and right perimeters of a heavy vehicle [16]. Furthermore, when asked to recall whether they remembered learning about heavy vehicle blind spots from driver schools when learning to drive, 69% of respondents recalled receiving little or no driver education regarding blind spots of heavy vehicle drivers [16].…”

“…Although there is little research into motorists' knowledge of truck and heavy vehicle blind spots, a study conducted in Malaysia found that when questioned on their knowledge of the location of truck blind spots, less than half of the 100 surveyed respondents were aware of blind spot locations to the front, left and right perimeters of a heavy vehicle [16]. Furthermore, when asked to recall whether they remembered learning about heavy vehicle blind spots from driver schools when learning to drive, 69% of respondents recalled receiving little or no driver education regarding blind spots of heavy vehicle drivers [16]. When we consider that road user manuals in Australia provide only a cursory overview of truck blind spots (e.g., the 212 page New South Wales (NSW) Road User Handbook [18] has half a page dedicated to truck and bus blind spots), young drivers in Australia are likely to similarly have little awareness of the limited truck driver visibility due to blind spots.…”