Is it really necessary to make shoulder checks while driving? If you expect to pass a driving exam in British Columbia the answer is a definite yes. However, some driving schools are teaching mirror adjustment techniques to replace shoulder checks.
Shoulder Checks and Blind Spots
The shoulder check involves briefly turning your head to the left or right and looking into your blind spots. These are areas that looking in the rear view mirrors will not reveal to a driver. A driver makes a shoulder check when changing directions or lanes to insure that there are no vehicles, bicycles or pedestrians hiding in the blind spots waiting to be collided with.
An Alternative Opinion
Another school of thought argues that it is best to keep your eyes forward in the direction of travel and use mirrors and peripheral vision to check surrounding traffic.
Mirror Adjustment to Help Eliminate Blind Spots
Place the left side of your head against the driver's door window and adjust the left side view mirror to begin to see your vehicle in the left edge. Next, move your head to the centre of the vehicle and adjust the right side mirror so that you can see your vehicle in the right edge.
This will allow you to visually cover most of the area beside and behind you with the mirrors when seated normally behind the wheel. Peripheral vision or a glance left or right will be enough to see what is not shown in the mirrors.
The Only Way to Be Sure
I was taught to shoulder check without fail in every case when I took driving instruction. The instructor told me that it was the only sure way to spot all hazards before I moved my vehicle into areas that could conflict with other road users.
Problems With Peripheral Vision
Older drivers may lose peripheral vision as a consequence of aging and some health issues can interfere at any age. In that case, the mirror method outlined above may not be appropriate.
Always Make Sure it is Safe
The bottom line? Before you turn or change lanes, it is up to you to make sure that it is safe to do so. Failure to look out for the safety of others will have serious consequences both during a road test and after a collision.
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If driving schools are teaching mirror position instead of shoulder checks, that might explain drivers trying to kill motorcyclists because they "didn't now they was there"
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In 1956 when I got my licence shoulder checks were required. Also in 1956 cars with outside mirrors were a rarity. Pickups came with one small round mirror on the drivers side. A right hand mirror on a pickup was an option.
Today the requirement of mirrors has changed unfortunately the driving manuals and apparently the driving exam have not kept up.
I feel using the mirrors is far safer. You do not have to take your eyes off the road and properly adjusted mirrors will cover the same area. And if you are driving a newer vehicle blind spot monitoring will cover that for you.
Another aspect of changing lanes is with taller vehicles you may not see a small child beside your vehicle if you do a shoulder check whereas a properly set mirror will pick that up.
Staying with the height of todays pickups I believe you will see a requirement in the future for forward cameras. Backup cameras were made mandatory due to people backing over items they could not see looking out the back window or in their mirrors. It is why backing into a parking spot is recommended. Today with the height of most pickups and SUV's one is going to see the same problem when starting to move forward. A child can be in front of the vehicle and not be seen. You see them on school buses and many commercial trucks mirrors that are set to see directly in front of the vehicle. As the average driver does not walk around their vehicle to do a proper safety check adding a camera to cover the blind spot will be on the way.
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Two comments regarding shoulder checks.
When I lived in California and was taking my drivers test, I failed because I did a shoulder check.
In Honeymoon Bay a friend with a vintage Buick did a shoulder check while merging onto the highway. The driver in front of him stopped instead of merging!
I seldom do shoulder checks and if anywhere in the world is like Victoria I should! I am very much in favour of adjusted mirrors.
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i was taught by my professional driver father to get someone to walk beside my vehicle to ascertain where the blind spots are. In my 50 years of driving, in all my vehicles, I install small convex mirrors to cover those blind spots.
On my late model Tahoe I even had to install one on the factory left mirror, over top of the OEM mirror, as it still had a blind spot.
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I know this is the most recent method of adjusting mirrors but I have a real problem with it. I want my mirrors to be adjusted so I don't have to move my head around like a bobblehead when I do a mirror check.
I took a mirror adjusting course a number of years ago and the first thing to do is make sure by only turning your head you must be able to see a sliver of your own vehicle down both sides for reference so you know you aren't missing something in close.
This method you describe creates a blind spot on both sides of the vehicle big enough to hide a bicycle approaching from the rear. This scares the crap out of me that so many people already don't watch for bikes but this seems to not even consider that.
Call me old school but I prefer the old way.
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Shoulder checks.