Tiny back windows seem to be a deliberate feature on most modern cars, presumably done to justify the inclusion of originally rear parking sensors and more recently TV camera systems, no doubt a very nice profit maker for the manufacturers.

I've had a couple of cars with pretty awful visibility.

The Meriva had a huge A pillar that seriously obscured vision at roundabouts (so much the worse because you could never rely on the Easytronic to find the best gear when there was a gap in the traffic ) and my current car isn't much better when it comes to lateral vision during reversing in car parks, despite the total lack of a B pillar.

Visibility wise cars seem to be going backwards, not advancing.

funny really, how, in the interests of style and design, the responsibility of safety is being removed from the driver and placed instead with all the electronic systems. Why does the driver need to see where he/she is going when the car will brake itself, or warn the driver through a buzzer if there is danger of having an accident?!.

This is something which is getting steadily worse, though it is hardly a new problem. Everyones favourite family hatchback, the golf, used to always be criticised over the blind spot caused by the depth of the C pillars. A problem which you did not get with the maestro, which was like sitting in a fish bowl, however the maestro has long since bitten the dust while the golf goes on as usual getting smugger and smugger. Motoring press meanwhile, have totally given up on offering any sort of criticism about the golf, instead ramming down our throats that it is point blank the best car in it's class.

But the new breed of SUV/coupe is by far the worst offender with their combination of ride height, depth of flanks and shallow windows means that without the brace of sensors and radars you get, it really would not be safe to drive one.

This ties in neatly with an aspect of car safety which is by and large, completely ignored these days. That is passive safety, or the ability to avoid an accident in the 1st place. In order for a car to have a high level of passive safety, it needs to have good visibility (so you have as good a chance as possible of spotting any potential hazard), it needs to be agile, and therefore light in weight (so it will react quickly to a sudden change of direction), and it needs to be no bigger than absolutely necessary (for example, you come upon a partialy blocked road, there is not enough space to stop, but there is a small gap). Of course, this does rely on the driver being alert and sharp enough to act quickly and decisively in such a situation..........

Never mind, once driverless cars are the norm, we wont have to worry at all about seeing where we are going or having accidents!.

Going back to volvo, i remember years ago reading about a new innovation developed by volvo to alleviate the blind spot caused by thick A pillars. By making them 'see through'!. This was done by having a latticework frame of metal and the gaps filled in with clear polycarbonate or some such thing. The article i read praised how effective it was, but nothing ever came of it, i wonder why?