Are You Using Your Car Mirrors the Right Way?

How many times have you gone to change lanes only to narrowly avoid a collision with a car traveling in that sweet spot where you don’t see it through your windows or in your mirrors?

Or maybe you weren’t so lucky and have experienced a collision due to your (or another driver’s) blind spots. It’s such a common issue, many cars now come equipped with blind spot monitoring which alerts you and even corrects your steering when there’s an object in your blind spot.

Unless you drive a glass cube, your car has blind spots. No matter how small or large your car is, if the mirrors aren’t angled just right, you’re subject to blind spots where you can’t see the car coming up behind you or beside you.

Here’s how to adjust your mirrors and prevent a costly crash.

Rear view mirror

Make sure you can see your entire back windshield without straining or reaching to see through your rearview mirror. You should only need to move your eyes to comfortably see edge-to-edge out of the back windshield, not your entire head.

Pro tip: If you’re a taller driver (let’s say 6’ or more), you could benefit from rotating the rear view mirror 180 degrees to make using the it properly more comfortable for you. This also prevents blind spots through the front windshield for taller drivers by raising the mirror a few inches.

Side view mirrors

Remember when your parents and Drivers Ed instructor told you to position your mirrors so you could still see the rear end of your car in the edge of the mirror? They meant well, but that positioning actually creates blind spots.

Get full visibility out of your car’s mirrors by moving your side view mirrors outwards. Go as far out as you can while maintaining a tiny bit of overlap between the view through your side mirrors and the view through your rear view mirror. Now, when a car travels past the field of vision through your interior mirror, rather than momentarily “disappearing” into your blind spot, it’ll pass right on through and remain well within your sight via your side view mirrors.

Blind spot mirrors

Blind spot mirrors might seem like a safety bonus, but they aren’t designed to reflect accurate distances and dim bright lights like high quality auto glass, so they actually distort your field of vision. Correctly positioning your car’s rear view and side view mirrors will eliminate the need for blind spot mirrors and make your driving experience much safer.