Wing mirrors on cars

I must have seen it on hundreds of them, including some that I owned myself. I can't believe that they were add-ons on both leased GM cars and many rentals.

Ah, here is an interesting cite, although it doesn't mention the split:

But here:

it mentions:

"Many OEM mirrors on the vehicles today have a split lens to assist in blind spot viewing. Upper end models have sensors that also inform the driver of vehicles approaching in the blind spot. As with most options, eventually they work their way down to the standard models."

I've not once heard anyone say "door mirror" and I'd assume they meant something on the bedroom door.

Is this a difference between US and European cars, I wonder. On many (though not all) British-, French- and German-made cars that I have driven, the mirror is divided into two parts: the part nearer the window is plane but the part further from the window is convex - sometimes there is a hard line between the two, sometimes it's a gradual change from one to the other.

I think that often both driver's and passenger's mirrors are the same plane/convex mixture, which saves manufacturers making two different sets of mirrors, for RHD and LHD markets. Certainly I've never been conscious of objects being two different sizes in the driver's and in the passenger's mirrors.

Is there a rule in the US that the driver's mirror must only be plane and cannot incorporate a convex panel?

What year was it built in? It seems from reading this group that Americans keep their cars a lot longer. Perhaps the UK annual safety test is more stringent. Most cars over about 12 years old are not worth keeping on the road here. It costs more to make them pass the test than to just scrap them and buy one a few years younger. In Japan I think there's some crazy law that all cars must be scrapped at 5 years old. I think most are sold to other countries, like India.

It describes *both* mirrors on my car and on my wife's car: plane for seeing the periphery of the car (*) and the majority of the traffic in the lanes either side of you, and convex for seeing cars that are very close to you in an adjacent lane and are therefore off the edge of the plane section. I use the convex section to determine that there is a car very close to me when I'm about to overtake or pull in, such that I can't judge its distance away (because it appears further away / smaller than it really is) but I know to look over the relevant shoulder to see its true distance.

(*) eg where the rear wheel is in relation to a kerb when parking, by tilting the mirror down - either manually or else automatically when reverse is selected.

Then killfile me, fool.

Same thing.

Because the driving group doesn't have many folk in it.

Courts should be made illegal.

Almost every car in the UK has mirrors that are adjustable by motor. Don't tell me you still reach out of the window to adjust them?

That video recommends adjusting the mirrors completely differently to how I was taught - so as to exclude any view of the side of the car. I adjust both mine so I can see a small amount of my own car as well as the lane either side. Without being able to see my car to give context, all that mirrors are saying is "there is a car - somewhere"; if I can see that car in relation to mine I can judge where the car is as well as saying that it is *somewhere near me*.

But then all my recent cars have had split-field mirrors, and on my older cars I had a adhesive plastic convex mirror that stuck to the plane mirror so I could see two fields of view.

I notice that coaches/buses, especially those with a "droopy rabbit's ear" mounting that protrudes forwards from just above the windscreen/windshield, have three different mirrors in each housing:

- plane, angled for lane-changes

- convex or plane, angled further outwards for blind-spot elimination

- convex angled slightly downwards to see rear wheels when reversing and to see cyclists who are trying to pass on the passenger's side when the car is turning that way (eg for a RHD car which is turning left).

Yes, I'm sure they do - now. I was querying was "wing mirrors are Limey invention" which tended to imply that US cars changed from wing to door mirrors much earlier that we did, or else had door mirrors rather than wing mirrors right from the beginning of the car era (ie Ford Model T onwards).

Who'd have thought it would have its own Winky entry, eh?

It's completely unnecessary, of course.

That appeared to be the case in the 80s which is when I was buying new cars in the US.

I think you open up an even bigger can of worms using football terms as an analogy

tim

not it someone sued you, it isn't

tim

Is it my imagination or is there no blind spot on cars at all? Have they made mirrors better? Or do some people not use them properly?

Like everyone else, I turn round and look behind me to get a full view in my whole field of vision. Wing mirrors are for pulling out or changing lane.

Or you could just learn to drive? In the UK, parking is part of the driving test. Maybe you should retake yours.