The Blind Spot

The handbook defines the blind spot as the area around the vehicle that the driver cannot directly observe while driving. Mirrors reduce it; they do not remove it. There is a zone on each side, just behind your shoulder, that neither the interior nor the door mirror shows, and it is exactly where an overtaking vehicle or a filtering bodaboda sits before it comes alongside.

The only way to see into it is a quick look over your shoulder, a glance through the side window in the direction you are going. The handbook says to check it, usually after the mirrors, before changing direction when:

• there are motorcyclists or cyclists close by;
• you are overtaking on a dual carriageway;
• you want to change lanes;
• a potential hazard could be hidden in it.

On Kenyan roads the first case is constant. The handbook itself warns that motorcyclists often push forward past slowing vehicles to reach the front of a queue. In practice they often filter up your left, between you and the kerb. So the left shoulder check before turning left or pulling in to the kerb is not an extra; it is the check that finds the rider the mirror missed. The Kenyan Hazard Set works through that exact scene.

Keep the look brief. While your head is turned, nobody is watching the road ahead. A glance is enough to tell whether the space is empty. If a manoeuvre is delayed, look again just before you move, as the Swedish Theory Book recommends, because the blind spot is exactly where things arrive unseen.