Very long reply, but I think this is VERY important for people safety, so I´ll try to explain the best I can with my poor english. Moderators, if you can move this discussion to its own thread that will be great.
Phil wrote:The side mirrors are to look behind
No they are not. This is a classic mistake.
Phil wrote:The created "blind spot" is the car that is essentially next to yours, hence why driving schools around the world teach you 3 important steps when about to pull off a maneuver where you change lanes:
1.) Check your center mirror
2.) Check your side mirror (on the side you are about to change lane into)
3.) Turn your head to check your blind spot.
If you do these 3 steps, you have a fairly good idea what is happening around your car and can foresee pretty much most dangers that you might be confronted with. You will also note that these 3 steps can be done in one fluid motion, moving your head from the center to the side and ending it by turning your head to check your blind spot.
And you´re moving your eyes away from the road, wich is far from optimal
I only do that when riding my bike, as it does not have center mirror so the side mirrors must point closer to the center line of my bike, missing some angle at the sides (dead point). In that case yes, it´s needed to move your head to look at your sides, but if you have a center mirror, you can adjust them further to the sides, reducing the dead angle to an almost irrelevant point, and avoid moving your head.
Perfect explanation of how absurd is adjusting your mirrors that way. You see same thing twice (center and side mirror, the dark yellow zones) and miss anything at your sides. That illustration is very optimistic about the field of view side mirrors provide tough, it really is narrower so the dead angle at your sides is bigger
Imagine in that ilustration if you move the side mirrors furhter to the sides, so the dark yellow zones are reduced and the field of view is increased to the sides. You loose nothing as the dark yellow zone wich is not dark anymore is still inside your center mirror field of view (FOV), but you increase your FOV at your sides. No cons, big pro.
Phil wrote:I sincerely hope you are not using your side mirrors any way else, or else I'd deem you a severe risk on the road to yourself and others.
It´s actually the other way around, I´m tired of watching people getting scared or crashing after some vehicle was out of their fov when trying to switch lanes because their mirrors are poorly adjusted. In 20 years driving I´ve never been scared because of this, and never moved my head to any side, because my mirrors are perfectly adjusted and I have no dead points.
Well actually there´s a small dead point, but smaller than a car or even a bike, so when the vehicle goes out the center mirror FOV, it´s already visible in my side mirror. Same after that, when it goes out the side mirror FOV, it´s already visible on direct view without moving my head to the side further.
BTW, today with mirrors with convex edges this is even easier to achieve, and the small and irrelevant dead angle I was talking about can dissapear completely
Phil wrote:And on any motorway, this is dangerous - cars approaching with high speed on example the fast lane next to yours.
Yes, for this reason you must get used to looking at your center mirror first, even if you just want to switch lane. Center mirrors also allow you to look at the lanes at your sides, from some meters back. You then check none is approaching fast, then you look at your side mirror and check if there´s someone at your side. If not, you then can move to your side lane without moving your head, because both mirrors did provide you an excelent picture of what´s going on around you. No need to look at your sides directly, and no dead points.
There´s only small dead point as I explained earlier, wich does not fit a car so it´s irrelevant.... for the lanes next to you. Two lanes away the dead point is big enough to fit a car, but if you´re not a stupid driver switching two lanes in a row and check your mirrors before each lane change, then there´s no problem at all, no dead angles
Phil wrote:Any person, blog or others who tell you to do otherwise are just doing it because people are too stupid (them included) to move their heads while driving or forget too
Or because they realiced it´s utterly stupid using two mirrors to see same thing (dark yellow zones), and moved their side mirrors further to the sides to increase the field of view without missing or loosing anything
Phil wrote:The edge of the car is important, i.e. when backing into parking spaces in reverse because it essentially lets you see the boundary of your car.
In that situation it´s very easy to move your head a bit to the sides to see directly behind, using the boundary of the car as a reference as you said. That´s easy to do when moving back slowly, much easier than moving your head back to look at your sides when travelling on a road or highway as you (and everyone) usually advise
If I have an accidente because of moving my head, I prefer if it is on a parking moving at 5kmh backwards, rather than on a highway at 120kmh because exactly when I moved my head to my side, the car in front applied brakes and I didn´t see it because I was looking at my side, and crash with him.
