Why tourists turn right in front of trucks?

[rocketman1]

Yes, but there are a lot more things that affect our vision, like size/threat/distance perception etc heaps more....

Lately I have forgotten how many times I have been following or watching some one corner. They have already made up their mind to go around the looking is only superficial they were going round no matter what."it's their right, I am more important, I'm a good driver... Etc

Its why I added more lights to make me look visible to those around, the fact that I can't ride in a straight line/weave all over the place helps to

Basically boils down to the old adage 'look out for yourself' - the hi vis jacket will alert the better drivers not not the others and diffidently won't protect you in an incident

Yeah my new car and it big rear vision mirrors, i figured it completely blocks out about 30meters of road when looking left, especially if the road falls away a bit, it is worse. I almost collected a biker at this particular intersection about 2 years ago, felt real bad. Now I always stop and look twice or more each way.

[eldog]

Yeah my new car and it big rear vision mirrors, i figured it completely blocks out about 30meters of road when looking left, especially if the road falls away a bit, it is worse. I almost collected a biker at this particular intersection about 2 years ago, felt real bad. Now I always stop and look twice or more each way.

The old A pillar can block the view of vehicles coming toward you from the side, esp from left.
newer cars seem to have bigger A and B pillars. I look twice to try and avoid this problem, saved me a few times.

[Metastable]

There was an article posted here a while back that shed some great insight. It was written by an RAF pilot..... Not necessarily related to tourists, but one can see how this would develop.

Essentially, when you have a look, your brain grabs some information and fills in the rest of the bits.
- The faster you look (glance), the more your brain misses. (saccadic masking i.e. saccadic blindness)
- The less you expect to see something (like a vehicle coming down a road that is usually empty), the more likely you are going to miss it.
- Motion camouflage. If the background is not changing in relation to the forward movement, it is harder to detect the moving object.

Simply put, a tourist new to the area, trying to figure things out in a new vehicle, like initiating the turn signal, but instead putting on the windshield wipers... trying to THINK ABOUT what lane to turn into (so they don't go the wrong way down the street).... glancing trying to find a street name...... and the above points are more likely to occur. Sadly.

Taking your time to look, and do a double look is your best chance at making sure you don't miss something.

[chasio]

... the hi vis jacket will alert the better drivers not not the others and diffidently won't protect you in an incident

That makes me wonder what sort of diffidence it would exhibit. Perhaps it might say something like, "I must offer my humble apologies to you for having allowed that Kenworth to smash you to smithereens due to the flimsy nature of my constitution. I blame myself, of course, but being as ineffectual as I am in the role of armour, I'm afraid it was the best I could do at the time."

Bloody auto-correct, eh!

[eldog]

That makes me wonder what sort of diffidence it would exhibit. Perhaps it might say something like, "I must offer my humble apologies to you for having allowed that Kenworth to smash you to smithereens due to the flimsy nature of my constitution. I blame myself, of course, but being as ineffectual as I am in the role of armour, I'm afraid it was the best I could do at the time."

Bloody auto-correct, eh!

Too right auto correct.... I had to edit it so that even I could understand it

must get me some of that HiVis armour you speak off

[merv]

I think it occurs for a very simple reason for those from left hand drive countries.

They are used to doing right turns without having to give way to oncoming traffic at all, just like we do ducking around a left hand turn now that that stupid rule from 1977 was sent back where it belonged.

So it is nothing complicated like having to look in mirrors or anything.

The solution can only come from being totally vigilant like MD said and by sitting on the 'wrong' side of the car always trying to use that as a reference that everything has to be treated inside-out. I have driven often in left hand drive countries and so far so good, but I do keep thinking it would be worse on a motorcycle not having that inside-out reference like you do sitting on the other side of the car.