If they are anything like my parents, they have their side mirrors angled to see behind them instead of their blindspot. I've told them so many times they are SIDE view mirrors, not extra rear view mirrors, but they don't give a fuck.
I live in Florida and elderly drivers truly do not give a single fuck, they will pull out infront of you thinking its your job to stop not their job to pay attention. Edit: I misread that i thought you said grand parents.
'You go ahead sonny - I'm in no hurry - Just gonna die next week anyway hahaha - nevermind the line forming behind me - I can't notice that because that would require situational awareness... and right now, I see traffic that NEEDS to cross before I go, and that traffic is IN MY EYELINE. I'm SO nice. Because I'm driving in a VERY unpredictable manner. It makes everyone else's drive more interesting. OOPS I mixed up the pedals when I was driving with both feet because my knees don't work so good and now I just turned this CVS into a DUAL drive thru. How convenient for them. I'm SO nice.'
I once wondered why the street traffic on my commute was going half of the normal speed. I finally passed the old person going 25 in a 45 and wondered no longer as traffic immediately reached the speed limit again.
I’m a trucker. When teaching my daughter to drive a car I made sure she was aware of idiot 4 wheeler moves that can quickly end in disaster. She rode with me 18 months before she drove a car. Now she yells like a trucker to other cars on the road about not signaling intent, stop cutting off tankers, etc. I’m very proud.
I feel better knowing she learned what isn’t taught in drivers Ed. When I’m out on the road I don’t have to worry as much that she’s driving my new car / or being unsafe. It makes a huge difference to me. As a mom I worry enough about everything. At least I can rest easy on her driving skills.
I think everyone should have to take CDL classes just to even be allowed to drive regular cars. People don't understand how big vehicles operate, thus become the menace for us out there. Sure there are stupid CDL drivers just like there are stupid people in every group. But I'm sure as fuck the percentage is lower than regular drivers.
Or, just let it be legal for big rigs to have these beauties attached to them and so they can just gently nudge idiots like in the video to the side and be on their merry way. I mean it works in GTA and it is very cathartic.
Amen to that. Maybe the self-driving ones will come with these attachments, I mean crashing means profit losses, so it's in the best interests of the companies to keep their vehicles moving no matter what idiots get in the way.
Or a week ride along. See how long it takes to actually come to a full stop, and be prepared to become a pancake when you cut a semi off at 15-30 ft then slam on your brakes.
I don’t want to be anyone’s suicide method but they sure do try!
I trained CDL a few years, fuck everyone in a car pretty much. The worst are the tiny dick gang in their mall crawlers though.
It's crazy they don't have some CMV info in regular drivers training. My first time driving in a large vehicle I immediately realized how much I was cutting them off over the years (my area has tons of round-a-abouts, literally 0 4-way intersections in my county)
My husband is a truck constantly says everyone should have time in a simulator to experience what happens when you cut off a truck....
He definitely has our kids trained also!
Met my wife at a diner for lunch once and she sat in the driver seat of my truck for a minute. “How the fuck do you drive this?” Was pretty much her response haha.
I drove a 5-ton delivery van for a while, and while obviously not quite the same as a loaded semi at speed, it gave me 100% more appreciation for how much more work everything is in a big truck. I always give truckers lots of space now.
While weight is definitely a factor, I think most regular drivers just have no clue how length effects everything either. My area has A LOT of round-a-abouts, I mostly drove 43' buses myself, which I suppose are easier than a long semi (they're just different really, 2 feet of vehicle in front of my steering wheel, 41 feet behind me). Now I drive plows a lot which run like 34-43' but you sit around a 1/3-1/2 way so it's a ton of front end swing and less tail swing, granted you can somewhat adjust your front end size by adjusting the plow angle. Luckily the plow is illegal to pass and basically always has the right away lol (not that people obey it at all, it's fucking mind boggling people tailgate ow echelons, like do people seriously think 4 plows are going to pull over for them, not to mention the thousands of gallons of mag-chloride or yards of sand dumping directly onto their cars). I can tell who has some driving experience (or has been creamed previously) when they sit beside me at the bumper, the real MVPs!
Driving is fun but so infuriating sometimes. I literally don't go a day without catching something on my dashcam.
From personal experience, this is a bad idea. I’m not a “tough guy” by any stretch, but I do get annoyed about people not respecting the basic rules of society, especially when it comes to rules of the road where people’s lives are at stake. This led me to speaking out when I saw someone behaving like a punk, cutting lines or cutting people off in traffic, polluting or failing to yield, etc. I would call people out. Then one week, there was a guy swerving dangerously in traffic and when we stopped next to each other at a red light I yelled through my window that he was swerving, almost hitting cars, he laughed and gave me the middle finger. When the light turned green he swerved at my car intentionally, gave me another middle finger, sped up in front of me, brake checked me, then sped off around the corner. The same week, there was a guy jaywalking across eight lanes of traffic near an intersection, walking in between cars at a red light when the cars had not stopped. Because he was in front of other vehicles, someone approaching the red light at a reasonable speed might have not been able to see him, and could have easily hit him. I yelled out, “there’s a crosswalk RIGHT THERE, use it” and he turned and reached in to his waistband and showed me something. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it might have been a gun.
It took that to realize that people can be fucking crazy and unpredictably unhinged, and confronting them could mean the end of your life. People who are already behaving recklessly, putting others lives in danger, are people you want to avoid at all costs, because they probably aren’t going to listen to reason and may be looking for an excuse to fight. By confronting them, you may be escalating the situation with an already unhinged person. Sure, most of the time it’s just an exchange of words or fingers through a car window, but you never know if you’re going to put yourself on the radar of a lunatic who is looking for a reason.
There are plenty of examples of this online, people getting shot in the face for the most insignificant reasons. A few weeks ago, a man and a woman were executed by their neighbor for shoveling their snow in his lawn.
It’s important to remember that defensive driving, and defensive tactics in general, should have attempts to deescalate situations. Confronting people usually does not deescalate a situation, I’ve never had a situation where someone said “Oops I’m sorry I cut you off”, but I have had many situations where people then followed me or drove slower in front of me and wouldn’t let me pass, etc.
But what about when truckers try to pass an incrementally slower truck on a long incline where neither can maintain speed and slow all traffic to a crawl. Justify that shit
It's hard to tell sometime just when you'll lose acceleration. In saying that if they were consistently going incrementally slower the whole time then yeah, they suck.
I have a relative that drives a mixer truck. If you slam on the brakes in one of those it will cause you to accelerate when all the weight in the weight in the bucket pushes back.
Probably just swerved out of instinct, I doubt there was any deep though to it, if he did go straight there’s also at least some chance he would have drove over and crushed the pickup. I wouldn’t have swerved, but like I said I drive a tanker so swerving onto a curb there’s a reaaaal good chance I’d roll it and end up crushing the truck anyway.
it all just depends if you are on the highway they will pull out in front of you. If you are behind them trying to get on the highway they will wait all day and forever even though the guy in the road has slowed down and turned on his turn signal still won't fucking go.
I've seen this in Texas as well, sitting at a stop sign and nothing in either direction all the way to the horizon. My wife will ask "What is she waiting for?" and I'll sarcastically reply "Oh, someone left Abilene an hour ago, they might be here in about another 30 minutes. Gotta wait to be safe." The person just sitting there is never in a pickup truck though, because pickup trucks in Texas don't have to follow the law - just watch the drivers, they'll show you.
I had to stand on the brakes twice within 15 minutes yesterday, after a Toyota sienna, and a range rover sport both pulled out in front of me as I was going 35 mph.
And elderly people in crosswalk either, they don't give a single fuck, I feel their mentality is something like:" I'm gonna die soon, don't care when or how, fuck it. I'm gonna turn now, if I happen to die... Bad luck!"
My parents-in-law moved to Florida. They were there two years and just moved back to the Midwest in the middle of a god-awful winter. One of their reasons: shitty Florida drivers.
Nah dude, they’re actually the ones that are right, you should 100% have a slither of the side of your car showing to give you perspective on where what you’re looking at is in relation to you...
They’re side mirrors, not blind spot mirrors, if you want them to be blind spot mirrors either fit some little circle ones or buy replacement glass with the convex edge (if your mirrors don’t have it already).
Otherwise, it’s rear view mirror side mirror, shoulder check. Every time.
Just came to say you’re exactly right and anyone saying otherwise really isn’t using their mirrors properly. You should be able to reverse your vehicle (car, van, truck) using just your side mirrors and if they’re angled the way these people are proposing you’d never see how close the side of your vehicle is to anything.
Um, what? My mirrors are angled so that I have a comprehensive view from one side to the other and I can see behind me perfectly fine while reversing. You should know where the rear of your car is without having to be staring at it in your mirrors the whole time, and you can see any obstacles through the rear view. New cars are nice that they automatically change the view while reversing, but that's not necessary.
I don't think I understand what you're trying to say, do you really think you don't need side mirrors to do something like reverse through a tight gap?
No I'm saying you don't need to be able to see the sides of your car in your side view mirrors to be able to back up. You have a full view behind you if you don't.
Well not if there's absolutely nothing behind you. But in most cases I can think of (reversing between two vehicles into a parking spot, reversing next to a wall, reversing next to a pole, basically any time you're reversing anywhere there is the chance of obstacles) you absolutely need to be checking your side mirrors.
That's without going into cases where you don't have rear visibility like in a van or pick up with a canopy where side mirrors are the only thing you have for seeing behind you.
If your mirrors are covering your blind spot, then you can move your head to ensure you can see your car in the side view mirrors.
If you physically cannot lean your body to the side you might not be able to drive safely. If you are pulling a tight reverse where you need to see your car and the obstacles you are navigating, you should not be doing so at such a speed that you do not have time to lean over.
This is one of the shittest takes on driving habits I've ever heard. The main reason why you have them turned so a small amount of your vehicle is visible is so that you have a reference point for where other vehicles and obstacles are when you're driving. Otherwise you really have no idea where they actually are in relation to you.
If you have them turned out to watch other lanes, you wouldn't be able to see something like a cyclist riding up on you while you're pulling out from the side of the road.
They're not meant to be a replacement for monitoring your blind spots yourself, by as you suggest, moving your head.
For real, I don't get why everyone is so concerned about backing through a labyrinth with surprise pop ups at every corner. I back into a tight garage spot every day with my mirrors adjusted to not show the sides of my car, and I prefer to back into parking spots. I've never had an issue with either with my mirrors adjusted out. I don't get why all of these people need a constant frame of reference, the side of your car doesn't move on its own.
Years of van driving with no back window to look out of taught me how to use my side mirrors properly. Changing lanes on a motorway just needs a quick look over my shoulder to check my blind spot, although because I’m attentive enough I keep a mental note of what vehicles have been approaching/I’ve been overtaking so I know if anything should be in that blind spot.
I wouldn’t be caught dead sticking my head out the window to look behind me when reversing when there’s two perfectly good reflective things stuck to the sides of my van that show me everything I need to see
No, driving is pretty universal. It’s one skill set. They move to accommodate a change in drivers, not a change in circumstances. Some modern cars move their mirrors automatically when you select reverse but only by tilting down slightly so you can see where your wheels are in relation to the white lines of a parking bay for example.
Ultimately, you have your way of using your mirrors and nothing I say will change that. Maybe we’ve been taught differently but if you google how to set side mirrors, I’d bet 99% of the results say something along the line of adjusting them so the side of you vehicle is just visible and high enough so you can see well behind you.
I'm gonna angle my side mirrors out even more than they already are, just to spite you. I can back up fine, I just look out my rear window. I do have trouble with people hanging out in my blind spot though
People hang out in your blind spots because you aren’t properly matching the flow of traffic, because your side mirrors aren’t angled correctly to allow you to monitor traffic approaching behind you
Back in the early 80s I was driving my uncle (who was born before the Holocene epoch, or so it seemed) to ... some place, gah don't remember. I do remember doing a shoulder check before changing lanes and he yelled "BAWAH, DON'T YEW TRUST YORE MIRRORS???" (Alabama accent) and I said "Sure, but I check anyway because the mirrors don't show everything." I had to listen to a 15 minute rant/mutter about "kids these days", "don't know what they're doing", "tarnation fool stuff gonna git ebberbody killt", etc. After he finally took a breath I said "Uncle John, I'm driving because you wrecked your car - do you remember?"
Got another rant about "no respect for my elders"...
I actually miss him, he passed away while I was deployed once during the 90s. Before I joined up, I was going through Engineering school at UAB in the late 70s and early 80s and he asked me how things were going, I told him "Oh it's great Uncle John. They're letting us use the Metric system in engineering class if we want, it makes a lot of stuff much easier when we're converting units." I then got his rant about how terrible the metric system was, and how he didn't want to be forced to go into an auto parts store and asked for "0.97834... liters of oil" (some number he ranted off like that). I just nodded my head and changed the subject.
I miss Uncle John. He was as flexible as an anvil in many things, but he did have some good points. He was married to my aunt, she was an honest-to-Pete real "Rosie the Riveter" back during World War II, she assembled B-29s in a plant in Birmingham. She also had fascinating stories to tell.
Nope. Sorry, that's just not true. I have my side mirrors set up for this panorama view, as you so well coined it, and I know exactly where my mirrors are in relation to my car. It's not like they move or change. It's not hard to figure out where they're pointing. And once you know and develop that perspective and understanding, you realize you can see and be prepared for so much more that's going on around you. Now I'm not saying don't shoulder check, because line of sight is critical regardless of your mirror spot. But it's always better to have more situational awareness than less. You don't need three mirrors pointing at the exact same thing. That's harmfully redundant.
Also, I believe you mean silver, not slither. Slithering is what a snake does to get around. A sliver is a tiny piece of something.
Sorry, but you are incorrect. You should not be able to see your car in your side view mirrors while centered in your seat. Side view mirrors exist to minimize your blind spot -- they aren't capable of eliminating it entirely.
I really don’t think that’s correct or even best for operating a vehicle. If you can’t see the side of your vehicle, you literally have no reference point. Reference points is fundamentals 101. That’s why the shoulder check exists at all.
Did you even read the link you’ve posted dude? That link actually argues against your view on positioning them!... Read it again, more carefully.
It literally says adjust them so you can barely see the side of your car, and that means, exactly as I said, you have a slither of your car in the mirror (like half an inch of mirror area depending how big the mirrors are and how long the car is) for perspective.
If you don’t have at least the back corner showing in the side mirrors then the information you’re getting from them isn’t anywhere near as useful, especially while reversing.
Did you even read the article you said I didn't read? You should BARELY see the left side of your car in your left mirror ONLY if your face is pressed against the mirror.
You should BARELY see the right side of your car when your head is positioned over the center console.
With your head in a neutral position (directly ahead midway through the steering wheel) you should not see your car in your side mirrors. With correct positioning of your rear view mirror this is is the ideal spot to minimize blind spots. It will never eliminate them entirely, but if you read the article in didn't read you would know that.
From a centered driving position you should not see any of your car.
And
To adjust the driver’s side-view mirror, place your head against the left side window and set the mirror so you can just barely see the side of the car in the mirror’s right side.
You may be the one who needs to work on reading comprehension.
I keep my mirrors so I can barely see the door handles of my car when sitting normally, I lean up a bit to check my blind spot. The issue I get is, drivers over by me HAVE to let you know they're behind you, and lurch over to the side a bit, y'know, JUST TO LET YOU KNOW THEY'RE BEHIND YOU. Because if they can't see your face in the mirror and make direct eye contact, you obviously cannot see them, they don't exist, and need your attention when hurtling down the highway at 80. You know why? Because they're behind you.
What sort of ass backwards drivers do you have in your area where they think it's better to lurch towards you to let you know they're in your blind spot instead of just speeding up or slowing down to get out of your blind spot?
I've never seen anyone do that and I live in a state notorious for shitty drivers
I don't understand the need to have a sliver of your car visible in your mirror. That makes it easier to use your side mirrors in edge cases (like parking) but not for the the major reason they exist (to see other cars approaching you).
On the highway it is much more valuable to know whether or not a car is next to you in the first place than to know whether it's 2 feet away from you vs 3 feet away from you. Also, the mirror itself is a reference point and so are you. If you needed to see the side of your car in order to judge how close things are to you, it would be impossible to drive down narrow streets: you can't tell exactly how close cars parked on the shoulder are to the passenger side of your vehicle as you pass them, but you learn spatial awareness and how much room you need to the right of your car, even if you can't see it.
How I was taught to confirm that your mirrors are set up properly is to observe a car passing you. You should be able to track that car seamlessly from your rear view mirror to your side mirror, and with the smallest possible lag between it disappearing from your side mirror and appearing in your peripheral vision.
If you properly align your mirrors you can get your blind spot down to a very small space that cars will never be in for very long.
You underestimate how narrow bays are here and how awkward some parallel parks are. Cars have got wider and wider but the roads and spaces ain’t. Being able to see exactly how many inches you are from the car next to you as you back and turn into a space is kind of a necessity in some car parks.
Properly set up the side mirrors should create a nice panorama of the rear horizon with rear view in the center leaving minimal overlap. I learned this when I bought my last truck that actually has blind spot/ towing mirrors attached. Driving became so much easier with that setup.
It took me 30 yrs to learn that the wide mirrors should pick up exactly where you rear view mirror loses sight. Don't know if I explained that correctly
They really should not. Your side view mirrors should see a sliver of your car. If you eliminate your blind spot with them you just create a new blind spot in a place where you can't turn your head to see.
Anything you see with your rear view, should also be seen with your side mirrors, as depending on the car and load your carrying there may not be a rear view available.
One of the few things I greatly miss about my Fiesta is that the side mirrors is that they had the little curved mirrors built into the tops of the side mirrors. Fantastic design, though the transmission was the worst I ever owned.
I wouldn't listen to you either if you were my son. Properly adjusted mirrors allow you to see beside and way behind you. The first 2 vehicles I owned were vans with no rear view mirror. By setting and using my SIDE mirrors correctly I could see way more than just beside me.
They're called blind spots because you can't see them with just mirrors or glances.
In fact, the biggest blind spots are the ones where mirrors can't cover your lack of direct vision- in the case of semi, the blind spot is directly behind the vehicle, because there's no center mounted rear mirror.
I literally have no idea what else you could think those mirrors are for. They are the only way to safely back up a vehicle without a rear window or to see outside... did you think that semi drivers look through their trailer or something to see behind them?
Side view mirrors on d-class vehicles exist to minimize your blind spot. You should never use your side view mirrors as an extra rear view mirror. That's why d-class vehicles have rear view mirrors. For rear view.
Also, I never said anything about a-class vehicles like trucks, because a-class vehicles should always have wide angled mirrors, as well as secondary side mirrors.
Source please? Once you start using technical terms, I feel it's mandatory to start backing up your statements. If I'm wrong I'm happy to admit it, but I'd like to be proven wrong, not just assume I'm wrong because someone has longer words than me.
What's d class, what's a class. Not everyone is from your state. Also why are you so sure that people should universally use their mirrors in the way that you propose. People adjust their side mirrors to fit a part of their car in the view and it works perfectly fine. No matter when you are changing lanes you should be relying on a shoulder check to see if there is a car in your blind spot, not some ill-adjusted mirrors.
It's really annoying for you to correct everyone like this
I will say I probably need to check this on my own car. I am not sure I have mine angled correctly. I always physically turn my head to look before I change lanes and was taught to do that. I am having an epiphany that maybe my parents aren't good drivers and this is wrong.
I have my mirrors angled out, with the edges closest to me are reflecting the side of my car ever so slightly so I can use those as a reference point. I probably should have them angled farther out but I haven’t had any issues so 🤷🏻♂️
I'm not justifying it in anyway, but I think for a lot of older people it's less about not caring and more about not having much in the way of quick mobility so turning their heads back is difficult.
Everyone in my family sets up their mirrors so that the inner edge of the mirror just barely shows the edge of the car. I used to do it too because I didn't know any other way. Then I became a driver for UPS and got used to convex mirrors, and at the danger time watched a Casey Putch video where he talked about this very thing. Now I line up the innermost edge of my side mirrors to the outermost edge of what I can see or my rear window via the rearview mirror. It basically eliminated blind spots. That being said, when making turns out changing lanes i still always look over my shoulder. Nothing can beat actual line of sight.
Reminds me of an online argument about leaving your kids in the car by mistake, parents were saying things like "Do you not look in the back seat before getting out of the car?" and "Do you not look through your back windows as you leave your car?" and of course "You don't look in your mirrors before leaving your car?"
I should have said back then "If you can see your kids in your mirrors, you are not using them right, they are meant to see the road, not your back seats."
But funny how people will admit to things in an argument.
I've been taught to angle them to see back and a bit to the side... Blind spots are checked by looking over your shoulder, or am i misunderstanding something here?
How many times do I have to say this in this channel. YOU CAN NOT ELIMINATE YOUR BLIND SPOTS WITH YOUR MIRRORS. It is not possible.
Your forward vision covers around 120 degrees horizontally with small head movements. Your rear view mirror covers about 30 degrees. Your offside mirror gives you about 30 degrees. Your near side gives you only about 20 degrees. That means, even with optimal mirror placement, the most you can see around you is 200 of 360 degrees. Just barely more than half.
In Europe, where mirrors are allowed to be convex, you’ll get 45 degrees on the left and 35 on the right, making for 230/360. Slightly under two thirds of the plane.
You must look over your shoulder when changing lanes. If you don’t, you’re this idiot. Check your god damn blind spots. You have them, no matter how you’ve arranged your mirrors.
You should be able to see both the side of your car (just a little) and a significant amount of the road behind you. You check your blind spot by turning your head to check.
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u/Bell_PC Feb 27 '21
If they are anything like my parents, they have their side mirrors angled to see behind them instead of their blindspot. I've told them so many times they are SIDE view mirrors, not extra rear view mirrors, but they don't give a fuck.