blankety-blank sitelines!

My wife has owned four cars in her life - a Corolla, a Civic, a Rav-4 and a CX-7. Usually she buys new and trades the car in after 10 years. She's never been accident prone - till the Mazda. In the 2 years with this vehicle, she's managed at least four minor fender-benders. The latest was into my e-30 in our driveway, and one of the others was into my Miata! (trying to tell me something?) She's short and I think that she's got lousy spatial awareness. Clearly this vehicle doesn't agree with her. I like the idea of trading it in for a CX5, but with the bulbous nose I don't know if it'd be much of an improvement. She had a Mazda 3 rental that she liked, but with a sedan she'll miss the high seating position that she likes.

Any suggestions?

Same with Robin, she backed into my newly restored TR6 four times, sold it, kept her.

You might try four little flags on the end of each fender . . . . or a booster seat and pedal blocks.

Buy her a nice car that is 15 years old and completely refurbish it with the balance of what you would have paid for a new car. Seriously.

Being able to see out of the cabin went entirely out of fashion (or was regulated away) somewhere around 2003-2004. It's been getting steadily worse ever since.

Its her high seating position that is partially causing the problem.

Put her in a proper minivan or wagon and see the problem get better.

We have a brand new Explorer at work. I got to drive it the otehr day and I hated it. I cannot see the front end or front right fender. Can't hardly see out the back either. This is in complete contrast to our 2008 Explorer that we all love. Why Ford would make the Explorer into what it is today and have the Edge is beyond me.

Four accidents in two years? She doesn't need a different car, she needs driver training.

Maybe a backup camera might help?
Like this

TeamEvil wrote: Same with Robin, she backed into my newly restored TR6 four times, sold it, kept her. You might try four little flags on the end of each fender . . . . or a booster seat and pedal blocks.

Admirable display of restraint on your part I do like the idea of hitting the ATV store for flags. But somehow despite the humilation, I think that my other cars would still be in geopardy.

Four accidents in two years? She doesn't need a different car, she needs driver training.

Yeah, I am going to work with her, but considering that she was pretty well problem free for 30 years prior, and that two of the four events occured in our driveway turnaround, I can't lay it all on her.

I was just noticing an older CR-V and how compact and open it was. I think that I'll be telling her to either go with a car, or an older car-based SUV if she wants the high seating.

I wouldn't trust her to drive a minivan for a minute

The CX7 has a backup camera! She says that with three mirrors plus the camera she just gets confused.

High seating position, 3/16 - 1/4" steel bumpers, plus rock armor - at least you can touch up any oopsies with a rattle can. The things she hits won't fare quite as well.

Some people, women more than men-but both can have this disease, simply don't have a very good spatial awareness.

Even with good sight lines she might still scrape things. Minimal overhang is good for these people.

I can't believe a Miata is an issue for her. With the turning radius and small size parking places seem like an airfield when compared to trying to squeeze in the same space in a minivan/SUV.

Now determining when the nose ends to keep from scraping on curbs when parking nose in does seem to be an issue on many sporty type cars.

I just tell my wife to park where she is at the joining of the rear & front doors of the car next to her and she'll be OK. That works until she jumps into the S after driving the F150 for a while. In the F150 you have to get as far into a parking space as you can to keep the rear end from hanging out.

kreb wrote: The CX7 has a backup camera! She says that with three mirrors plus the camera she just gets confused.

This, plus your other comments (not trusting her with a minivan, two incidents in her own driveway, etc) lead me back to DRIVER TRAINING. Past performance means nothing, obviously there is something going on. It's nothing bad on her, people change. Help her out, take a driving class with her. Everybody can always use a brush-up (yup, me too).

My wife was more spatially challenged than she is now & how I made it all sink in was to take some of my autocross cones and have her salom through them at low speed in a parking lot till she ran over them.

First let me say she ran over all the ones on her right side and after we got past the "Don't run over the cones" segment we began to see how close she could get without running over them.

She couldn't believe how much more room she had than she thought.

This was something I made my kids do when I was teaching them to drive. They also had to do it backwards. Most people can't back a vehicle up very well, my kids can!

I also rented a big Budget truck and made them manuever through tight parking lots (empty first) and then stuck a trailer on my truck and made them drive that around for days and back into all kinds of places.

The upside to this is that my kids have moved multiple times and I have never had to help them except when it was a need for extra hands thing or moving across country and needed to get the trailer back to me.

Reference points and front/rear limitations. Look it up on the Youtube for more information. It's how we teach teens to know how big the car is in DE.

Here's an example: to find the front of the car place the car perpendicular to something (like a curb or wall or edge of grass). From the driver's seated position look to the left and right below where your mirrors meet the car/a-pillar. Where the line "disappears into the car is the front limit reference point. If you park the car so that the "line" is always at that point you should be within 12 inches of the curb/garage door/edge or parking lot, etc.

Left-side reference point: To align the vehicle 3-6 inches from a pavement line or curb on the driver’s side of the vehicle, the driver should stop when the line or curb appears to intersect a point located about one foot from the left edge of the hood of the car. After stopping the vehicle, the student should place it in park, set the parking brake, and get out of the vehicle to check whether the vehicle is in the desired position. If it is not, the student should try again.

Right-side reference point: To align the vehicle 3-6 inches from a pavement line or curb on the passenger’s side of the vehicle, the driver should stop when the pavement line appears to intersect the center of hood. The student should get out of the vehicle to check whether the tires are 3-6 inches from the line, and make adjustments as needed.

Front reference point: To align the front bumper 3-6 inches from a pavement line or curb, the driver should stop when the line appears under the passenger side mirrors. Ask your child to get out of the vehicle to check to see whether the front bumper is 3-6 inches from the pavement line or curb. Adjust as needed and re-establish the window sill reference point.