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It’s time to ban ‘right-on-red’
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this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2023
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Shoulder checking isn't even necessary. People just don't set their side mirrors correctly. If you can see your own car in your side mirrors, they're incorrect. Or I guess I should say inefficient for what they are trying to accomplish.
Setting those properly would do a lot of people a lot of good.
Edit: I should clarify, I'm assuming shoulder checking meaning looking back, beyond 90 degrees to look backwards. Most people do this to check the "blindspot", but this basically doesn't exist if mirrors are correctly set. You still need to check the immediate sides of the car.
Blind spot is in all cars back passenger side window. It’s so well known that it is taught to avoid that spot while riding a motorbike. Refusing it exists makes you all that more dangerous behind a murder machine.
With properly adjusted mirrors to create a continuous field of view, motorcycles are visible. Car has "blind spot" detection but is completely useless. The vehicle it claims is out of my view is in fact. Your diagram is actually incorrect as well. The passenger side mirror is angled too far inward. It's a pretty poor diagram because I certainly don't have any issue seeing motorcycles no matter where they are.
https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15131074/how-to-adjust-your-mirrors-to-avoid-blind-spots/
It seems you and I are alone in this thread. I like how you said a continuous field of view, that's exactly what it is. The over the shoulder check is unesscessarily dangerous, and leaves you bet susceptible to rear ending people.
For most people, you shouldn't see your own car in your side mirrors.
Idk why people have a hard time grasping it. Not one bit of my car is visible in the door mirrors. The issue comes down to who educates drivers these days. An independent training program for new drivers is going to be much more thorough. The local DMV isn't gonna care too much. People have this obsession where the need to so what's directly behind them with all three mirrors, when that's not what all three are for.
From what I've seen, people are saying the blind spot is anything that's not in your mirrors. As in your "blind spot" is directly to your left or right. Anything that requires turning your head at all.
Which is fine... But I thought the blind spot referred specifically to the area back left or back right of the driver, where most people do a full turnaround to check those spots. That specific action can be eliminated through proper mirror adjustment. That's the only point I was trying to make but damn people got spicy about it.
I absolutely do not understand that diagram at all... How can you have a blind zone where you can literally turn your head 90 degrees and see?
Motorcycles are a bit different, in that I'm always extra careful if I see them around since they are small. I can't speak for all cars, but in both of the ones we have, I can see a car smoothly exit my rear view mirror into my Sideview mirror with a bit of overlap and then as it is exiting the side mirror I can see it with my eyes and my head turned, with a bit of overlap. There's literally no place to hide.
Also your comment is pretty rude, painting me like I'm some invincible road warrior who just merges with no precautions because I'm so confident that my mirrors are right that I merge hard enough to kill someone. I still signal, wait several seconds, merge slowly, and remain aware. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.
Literally what mirrors are for when they are correctly adjusted.
I'm guessing they call it something different where you live, but in America "blind spot" refers to the area you can't see in your mirrors, and must turn your head to see. It's literally what you describe as you talk about a car passing in your second paragraph. "Checking your blind spot" refers to the process of physically turning your head to check and making sure the lane change/turn is safe to do.
The reason he painted you as an invincible road warrior bent on killing pedestrians is because you denied the existence of one of the biggest causes of car-on-non-car incidents: failure to check blind spots. Which, prior to this comment, you definitely sounded like, and I think you'll agree if you reread your comment with the new context of what Americans call "blind spots".
I am American, but I'm trying to get to where the disconnect is.
What I've usually heard referred to as the blind spot is diagonally back, sort of looking out of the back seat windows on either side.
I've driven in a lot of cars where they have their mirrors set up incorrectly, and yes you have to turn all the way around to see that spot.
I'm saying in my cars, with a proper setup, you don't need to turn back that far. You only need to check out your own window, which hardly requires much of a head move.
Turning around and checking backwards takes your eyes completely off the road, and is quite dangerous.
This YouTube video explains it quickly in just 60 seconds: https://youtu.be/tpFXTvmToiU?si=n35tVyuDELaZ3lau
I tell people this IRL and get the same reaction. But if you use this setup, you have to be basically negligent to not see someone in your mirrors.
We're saying "you need to check your blind spot when driving" and you're saying "blind spots don't exist, but also you can almost completely eliminate blind spots by mirror position, but also I still check blind spots".
The disconnect is that you've arbitrarily defined "blind spot" incorrectly, and refuse to acknowledge that "the bit of road not shown in rear view mirrors that is only visible by physically turning your head" is a blind spot. No amount of mirror adjusting is going to be able to fully replace checking a blind spot. Even using the method of the video you linked, seeing cars 2 lanes over merging in is basically impossible.
Blind spots are real. Mirrors, by definition, can't show you everything in your blind spot. If you don't check your blind spots, you could be responsible for someone's death.
I feel like you're being the thing you're accusing me of. Don't think we're going to get anywhere, I have nothing new to say. I think a reasonable person can decipher my point of view pretty easily.
I'm just gonna respectfully back out at this point.
This is the image, taken directly from your mirror adjustment video. The red triangles (added by me) show the "blind spots" you have when using just your mirrors, as adjusted in this video. If you fail to check these blind spots before making a driving maneuver, you could easily kill someone. You have to turn your head to check these spaces. The act of turning your head is the literal definition of checking a blind spot.
Feel free to back out of this discussion, but be sure to check your surroundings before going in reverse.
At best you're obtuse. Your comments in this thread have been annoying and inaccurate.
The diagram is for driving on the left side of the road. Flip it around for the way we drive in the US. Car too. They labeled the right side of the car the driver's side, and the left side of the car the passenger's side. It also assumes people don't use their passenger's side mirrors. For safety's sake, I can understand that, as enough people don't use that mirror that it's safer to assume no one does.
The blindspot absolutely exists with mirrors. It's just bigger or smaller depending on vehicle size.
I don't know what to tell you. In my car I can see a motorcycle that approaches and passes from the rear view, then the rear and side mirrors, then the side mirror, then the side mirror and out my window, then out my window as they pass. I literally never lose them for a moment between these 3 visibility areas.
I drive a pretty sensible car, so I can imagine this is more of an issue with large trucks, but I simply do not have an area that I am completely blind to.
Iy tends to be more of an issue with some modern muscle cars, and cars which have larger back seats like your modern SUVs or crossovers, because the space between the visibility of the mirror and the visibility of your side window is much larger, and tends to be more exaggerated on the right hand side of the car, if you're LHD. You know, as compared to a hatchback.