A couple of weeks ago I was driving along a steep valley with constant winding hairpin turns for over an hour, and I'd never been more aware of the fact that the pillars prevented me from seeing any oncoming traffic whatsoever when curving (extremely) left, even if I craned my neck as far as I could to the right. The pillar just blocks it all out.
It was really disturbing to drive knowing you just can't see if there's oncoming traffic or not, and if they're in their lane or drifting into yours. You just have to hope and pray everybody's staying in their (narrow) lane.
Absolutely sucks from a safety and awareness perspective. I consider myself a really responsible and careful driver, and I hated being put in such a literally blind situation.
In 2001 Volvo released a concept car called the SCC (safety car concept) that had see through a pillars!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_SCC
image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Goteborg...