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Yes, cyclists too. When approaching an intersection which is not at right angles, it can be especially dangerous for cyclists when the speed of the car and cyclist is just right for the cyclist to be obscured for a long period of time. [1]

I also noticed when driving a certain Kei car in Japan with no a-pillar airbags and a so-called “split” or “double” a-pillar with a window between 2 skinny pillars, that the visibility is so much better. It feels great when you realize you don’t need to move your head around at all to see past them, the parallax affect of having 2 eyes makes them basically disappear. [2]

[1]https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/12/02/study-diagonal-inters...

[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daihatsu_Tanto#/media/File%3...




Tom Scott has a good video for anyone looking for a visual of this phenomenon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYeeTvitvFU

He shows off a rural (and thankfully now fixed) crossroads in the UK with seemingly great visibility and an unusually high rate of cyclist fatalities - the roads are at such an angle that any reckless driving speed can align with a reasonable cycling speed such that the driver's door pillar can block visibility of a cyclist with right of way right up to the point of impact - and it's compounded by the fact that the car is necessarily approaching from behind the cyclist, so a passing cyclist will be unaware of the danger possibly until they get hit.

Of course if drivers in the area actually followed the stop signs no one would get hit - but if you watch the video in a five minute period genuinely only about half of the cars passing through actually come to a complete stop at the stop sign. You need more than signage and quietly hoping that people to do the right thing.




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