Plant: Blind spots: Our over reliance on technology creates more obstacles then necessary
by Shawn Casemore
Photo: Yevhen Lahunov / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Several weeks ago, while driving to visit a client in New York, I stopped briefly to gas up my car.
As I approached the pumps, I realized that the only pump available was on the wrong side compared to my car’s fuel door. Not wanting to wait, I decided to reverse into the parking spot to position my fuel door directly next to the gas pump.
As you might imagine, this is a maneuver I’ve done hundreds of times. However, this time, I decided that rather than look over my shoulder to reverse to the pump (how we did it in “the old days”), it would be wise to use the reverse camera displayed on my dash to guide my car.
Like many cars today, mine offers a 360-degree view of the vehicle while parking, amongst several other images, resulting in multiple perspectives and angles of your vehicle and its surroundings on the screen, all at the same time.
Usually, this would be fine, as I would select the image to focus my attention on, then reverse; however, on this day, I was in a hurry. My brief shoulder check didn’t amount to anything noticeably out of place, as my car has two rather large pillars on either side of the rear window, both of which create a significant blind spot when reversing.
This article originally featured in Plant. Read the full version here.
