Wide Windshield Pillar on Gillig Bus Creates Deadly Blind Spot

ATU 757, along with a number of other locals, has seen a rise in left-hand turn pedestrian accidents which we believe are caused by the windshield pillar in the Gillig buses - particularly a high-floor Gillig we call the Gillig 2100 model. The animation which accompanies this page was created to show how a pedestrian using crutches entered the Gillig blind spot and stayed in it. This was a fatality accident. Also attached are documents created by Brian Sherlock of ATU Local 587 in Seattle Washington. These documents discuss the Gillig blind spots.

Driver View of Pedestrian on Crutches Entering Blind Spot

Short vs. Tall Fareboxes

Metro Gillig Left Front Pillar Blind Area

Visual Obstructions From Oversize Mirrors in Metro Gillig Coaches

Mudsplashes

The point of the information below is to demonstrate that when people encounter a visual distraction, their brains miss changes in other objects that are in plain view. This is one explanation why professional drivers will miss seeing something because they have been distracted by something else while scanning their mirrors every five or so seconds.

The Mudsplash GIF Movie Demonstrations are for an article submitted to Nature August 2, 1998 "Change blindness as a result of mudsplashes" by J.K. O'Regan (Laboratoire de Psychologie Experimentale, CNRS, Paris), R.A. Rensink (Nissan Cambridge Basic Research), & J.J. Clark (Electrical Engineering Department, McGill University)

Click to view Mudsplash GIF Movie Demonstrations