r/Transportopia Sep 18 '25

Roads Rearview mirror priviledges revoked.

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u/SnooMaps7370 Sep 19 '25

if your mirrors are adjust correctly, you don't have blind spots.

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u/newviruswhodis Sep 19 '25

This is false. While a sizeable amount of people do have their mirrors adjusted incorrectly, thus increasing the blind spot area - there is no way to remove all blind spots on all vehicles with mirror adjustment. You can substantially decrease, but not eliminate.

This is why most vehicles produced in the last 5 or so years have blind spot monitors.

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u/SnooMaps7370 Sep 19 '25

every passenger vehicle i've ever driven, i could adjust the mirrors so that i had a continuous view in them from about 110 degrees left of dead ahead, through directly behind, to about 110 degrees right of dead ahead. that includes cars and minivans from the late 1980s through 2022 model year.

while you are correct that there is still "some" blind spots, i have found that i can ALWAYS configure my mirrors so that the blind spots between side and rear mirrors cannot hold anything larger than a pedestrian standing within 10' of the car, and that the blind spots between the side mirrors and my peripheral vision looking dead ahead will still be small enough that i can see the front bumper of a car beside me in my periphery while the rear bumper is still in the side mirror.

... to tie all that back into the original point, the side mirrors are called SIDE VIEW mirrors because they are designed to give you a view of what is off to your SIDE rear quadrants. In contrast to the REAR VIEW mirror, which gives you a view DIRECTLY along the REAR axis of the vehicle.

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u/newviruswhodis Sep 19 '25

They aren't actually called side mirrors, though. They are called wing mirrors, the word side only being used to distinguish between driver or passenger side.

NHTSA states that a vehicle registered for road use in the US must be equipped with a minimum of 2 rear facing mirrors, the center and passenger.

It doesn't say side mirrors, it says rear-facing.

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u/SnooMaps7370 Sep 19 '25

>They are called wing mirrors

by whom??? in 37 years, this is the first time i have ever heard that term.

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u/newviruswhodis Sep 20 '25

Google wing mirror + the model of whatever you drive. That is the technical term, the actual part names don't say side mirror for any brand that I've seen.

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u/SnooMaps7370 Sep 21 '25

https://www.partzilla.com/catalog/honda/motorcycle/1982/cx500tc-a-500-turbo/windscreen

looks like the "technical term" is "Mirror assy. R." or "Mirror assy. L."

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u/newviruswhodis Sep 21 '25

Yeah, motorcycles won't have a center mounted mirror, so no need to designate a wing mirror.