Visibility: the cars that offer the worst view for drivers

Poor visibility increases the level of effort you have to spend when driving, as well as making an accident more likely.

Good visibility is crucial for all motorists. If you don’t have a good idea of what’s around you, it makes it all the more likely that you will be caught up in an accident.

Yet the visibility on offer from different motors can vary.

Consumer champion Which has put the nation’s cars to the test and identified a whopping 27 cars that it says offer a limited view of the road around motorists.

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I can’t see!

There are plenty of different factors that can impede the visibility offered by a car.

It isn’t simply a question of the car’s shape or mirrors, or the size of your windows ‒ instead all of these factors come together to provide the driver with a view of the road around them.

So, for example, if you have thick pillars between each window, it can prevent you from enjoying a decent view of your surroundings when trying to perform certain manoeuvres, like switching lanes.

There may be good safety reasons for those pillars. They may be in place to ensure the car can handle an accident and protect those inside, but the trade-off may be that you have to try to work around a less-than-perfect view of the road. 

And as the testers at Which point out, this trade off doesn’t just increase the level of effort you have to put in when driving to avoid accidents, it can also raise your stress levels, affecting your performance behind the wheel.

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How do you test visibility?

You might argue the visibility offered by a vehicle will be somewhat subjective. To get around this, Which used a rotating camera to get a 360-degree view from the driver’s perspective, following what would be the driver’s eyeline around the car.

They can then pick out what objects, such as window pillars and headrests, will interrupt that line of sight and to what extent.

Other factors included in the testing include the quality of headlights and technology designed to assist the driver, such as parking cameras. Cars are then awarded a score out of five.

The worst cars for visibility

In total, a whopping 27 cars were awarded just two out of five for their visibility.

Thankfully, no motor was bad enough to get a score of one, but that’s still an awful lot of cars available right now which offer a disappointing level of visibility.

Here are the worst offenders:

That list is unlikely to make pleasant reading for the team at Renault, with four separate models making the hall of shame, although there are plenty of other repeat offenders, with Chevrolet and Ford managing three each.

But it’s when you dig into the details of why some of these vehicles have scored so poorly that the interesting nuggets really emerge.

For example, Which notes the Renault Megane already comes with a ‘letterbox-like’ rear window, in a bid to look stylish. But the already limited view is further restricted by high rear-seat headrests.

Meanwhile, the Dacia Duster is criticised for its thick pillars towards the rear, which risk obscuring hazards behind the car.

While rear parking sensors and a rear-view camera can help improve matters, they only come as standard on higher-spec models.

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Don’t panic!

The good news is that far more cars delivered a better performance in the visibility tests.

Indeed, more than 200 cars, old and new, scored at least four out of five, so there is plenty of choice when it comes to quality visibility.

As always though, it’s important to view this as just one factor when determining what car to go for.

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