Let’s Be Frank: Blind Spots

I was driving across town last week on a one-way street that ranged from 5 to 6 lanes wide. Suddenly, a car on my right swung into my lane, forcing me to swerve to avoid a collision. Having played this game before, I watched that car as I came into their blind spot. What I found interesting was that the other driver didn’t look in their mirrors, let alone shoulder check, before changing lanes (they also didn’t signal until they were already changing lanes).

This made me realize that the driver doesn’t seem to understand that they have a blind spot from their own position. That got me thinking about other “blind spots” we may have in general, and do we even realize those blind spots are there?

It’s one thing to know that you have blind spots, because then you will likely try to plan or work around them. But what if you don’t even realize there are blind spots? If you don’t know, how can you act differently to reduce any risk from that blind spot?

We currently live in a society where it appears that there are a lot of blind spots we are unaware of. What do I mean by societal blind spots? Any number of things, but let’s look at a few.

We have blind spots around broken social contracts. There is a broader trend in the Western world right now where problems are being attributed to a lack of patriotism. This is obviously a blind spot, one that most of our national leaders fail to recognize.

Here is an example. Over the past year, I have seen an increasing number of articles about countries considering conscription again due to declining enrollment in various forms of military service. I have seen multiple articles from the USA, Canada, many European countries, and even some Asian countries.