BLINDED by the light! Aftermarket sideview mirror dimmer?

You're not supposed to adjust mirrors while you're driving.

Because you'll have a reference point of the side of the car if you have your head in either specified position.

Scott en Aztlán snipped-for-privacy@NOyahooSPAM.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I used to work a sales job with a territory that tended to leave me 70mi from the office and home at the end of the day. I got a lot of practice in dealing with these situations on 2-lane and 4-lane roads.

My favorite on the 2-lane curvy ones was to find the tailgater/lemming who would match speed with me no matter what, and run him through a few combination curves at whatever combination of speed, skill, and balls I could manage with the vehicle I was in that day. Since I was usually in my car, that tended to get rid of SUVs and pickups every time, and more than a few sports cars.

Have you ever considered that there might be other ways of scraping off these barnicles without using the left lane improperly?

You can still look out for #1 without being so MFFY about it...

Over 40 years of driving I have tried everything I can think of, and this works best.

I don't think so. Nobody else seems to be cooperating in my safety. If they did, these measures would not be necessary.

Dave Head

I sometimes will adjust them slightly downward so that I have to slouch somewhat to use them. Same thing with the rearview mirror.

It pays to keep an open mind. ;)

Has anyone out there tried a car with the auto-tinting side mirrors? Do they work well - cutting the glare? Or are they a gimmic? Anyone have a review of how well they work? Are they better than the manual type found on my rearview mirror?

If you are doing that and _not_ keeping left, then you are necessarily changing lanes a lot, or passing on the right. I don't mind passing on the right, but you can't much do that around here 'cuz the slower traffic is mostly already in the right lane, so's you gotta pass 'em on the left.

If you scrape 'em off by passing normally, and then get back to the right lane, that means you are changing lanes _a lot_, or would be around here. I'd probably be changing lanes 5 - 10 times on the way to Fredericksburg during the

Changing lanes a lot is a really bad idea. 1st, its not that hard to screw up and do it when there really is somebody beside you. If you pay good enough attention not to screw it up, it takes your attention off the road ahead. Just about time you're checking your blind spot is when somebody else does something idiotic and then you're involved 'cuz you wasn't watching them as intensely as you could otherwise be if you weren't looking rearward. Also, a _quick glance_ backward isn't good enough, at least not for me. If I do that, I tend to miss things. I might see a car in my rearview just even with my rear bumper, but not necessarily a motorcycle.

The other reason changing lanes a lot is bad is because it gets you noticed more by the cops.

No, I don't want to be changing lanes a lot when just staying left works so well. So it gets a lotta people's nose outa joint. I can live with that, and they can pass on the right. I'm safer that way, and that's priority #1.

Dave Head

Only true if you're mirrors are not adjusted correctly.

Did you even read the rest of this thread?

Sorry for my ignorance - what does IMO stand for? thanks

No, it's true alright. The fact that you have a blind spot is testament to that fact.

Yes, because cars, motorcyclists, and cyclists are smaller than the ear on a deer <rolls eyes>

I go by perception of motion and confirmation of another vehicle by glancing. They'll either be visibile in my rear view mirror, one of the exterior side mirrors, or in my peripheral vision outside the driver's or passenger's side window.

How do you adjust your mirrors? Are you able to see the side of your vehicle in either side mirror?

Well, did you?

Easy. They are in the right lane. They are "duckling" with my right rear wheel. They can see that there's a slower car directly in front of them. They know that if they don't get a move on, and accelerate to pass, they're gonna get held up (scraped off) by the slower car.

Me.

I guess its pure magic.

My friends wouldn't drive close to me, limiting my options in emergency driving situations. The people that try to drive off my rear bumper are not my friends, they're enemies of my well-being. I don't have even a gram of conscience about doing what I do to them, which is mostly nothing, because it requires their cooperation for them to get inconvenienced by it. If they'd just go ahead and PASS, everything would be A-OK. But if they want to pace me, well, that's just too damn bad, 'cuz I'm not gonna allow it for very long.

Because they increase my chances of bleeding all over the highway if something goes wrong.

They're trying to be royal pains in the ass, and succeeding. I'm just preventing it.

Dave Head

In a previous posting, snipped-for-privacy@att.net (Dave Head) had the audacity to say:

:They're trying to be royal pains in the ass, and succeeding. I'm just :preventing it.

By being one yourself.

"Me first, pheck you"

'Cuz there might still be a car there...

Whatever... <G>

I guess I'm not "most people". "Most people" don't hunt deer for 10 years and not see one, either. I'm not blind, but I don't recognize things by shape really well.

I tried checking really often once a long time ago, and it was a very tiring exercise. I mostly only check now when I'm about to do something like brake or change lanes. Otherwise I mostly watch where I'm going.

That's why I look for more than just a glance. Different techniques work better for different people.

Yeah, that might be an exaggeration. <G>

No, but I don't read fast enough to see a lot of the credits on the screen after the movie, either, or the conversation from the battle-bots in Quake 3. The sentences are gone before I can read 'em.

Yeah, I think I'm OK there.

I'm _generally_ going faster than _most_ everybody else, but there are the ones that _do_ catch up sometimes, and then there's the ones I pass that speed up to match my pace. The ones that catch up should go ahead and pass. The ones that speed up should be reduced to a cinder where they sit. I've got no sympathy for either. Pass or fall back. Don't care, just don't drive close to me.

Any yeah, I'm not terribly confident that I can switch lanes 10 times per 20 miles for 40,000 miles a year and get it right every damn time. So, I minimize it. If people would just go ahead and pass, or not speed up and match my speed, there wouldn't be a problem at all.

Dave Head

Ask me if I care. I'm already speeding - so what?

Again...

Same response.

There's that one-note piano that is dredged up by those that just don't have a response to something different that works. Fact is, I've been doing it this way for over 40 years and haven't had an accident. IOW, it works.

Dave Head

Have your mirrors lost their reflective coating?

If we were talking about trying to determine the make or model of a vehicle using one of your mirrors, you'd have a point, but that's not what we're talking about. You don't have to be able to "recognize" the "shape" of a car to know that there is a car visible in your mirror.

Yes, the slight use of the extraocular and sternocleidomastoid muscles must be a real bitch. I certainly hope you're not too lazy to actually turn your head when entering the main roadway.

You're starting to sound more and more like those incompetent drivers who are clueless about their immediate surroundings. God forbid you should try to maintain a "situational awareness" of what's going on around you while driving 70 mph.

Sure you do. If you'd actually do what you're supposed to while driving, then those ducklings would never have a chance to trap you in the right lane. When I'm driving and I see that I may get trapped in the right lane because of a potential duckling, I take measures to prevent that from happening (like speeding up and passing sooner than I otherwise would have).

You wouldn't have to if you check your mirrors as often as you should have.

I'm sure that pissing other drivers off would work for me as well, but I like to drive in such a way as to not cause undue interference with other drivers. Maybe that's why I don't have as many problems as you do on the road.

Neither can I, but it doesn't take me 23 minutes to read a 100 line post (with an average of 14 words per line) either ... though it would probably take me a little longer than that to type it.

Trim, next time, damnit :)

I go faster than most. I drive in the same state that you do. I don't have this problem.

I switch lanes about 7 or 8 times over 3 miles on occasion. I don't have a problem with it. When traffic is heavier, I tend to switch lanes less often either due to lack of speed differential or lack of room.

Which means that not glancing at the mirrors often enough is bad. Let's say, for argument's sake, that the probability of not seeing something of importance after glancing in one of your mirrors is 50%. Now, if you glance at your mirror only when you want to change lanes, then you'll likely miss seeing something you'll end up colliding with. If you glance at your mirrors once every 5 seconds, the probability of missing something over a period of 30 seconds is less than 1% (and that's if you're incapable of remembering the relative positions of vehicles in your vicinity).

Taking a long hard look at your mirrors takes more attention off the task of driving than does glancing at them at set intervals.

Evidently, the people catching up to you aren't worried about driving 70 mph like you are.

Whatever. I drive on a 55 mph 4 lane divided highway and I have no worries about doing that. The last time (and only) time I was cited for speeding in VA was over 10 years ago.

Yeah, like increasing your speed by 5 mph is going to wreck your gas mileage. If you're that worried about gas mileage, then why don't you start driving a Geo instead.

No it isn't. By potential duckling, I'm referring to a vehicle slowly catching up with me. By increasing my speed by 5 mph, I'm either going to match their speed or exceed it. Therefore, they have no reason to get pissed off.

People do have a reason to get pissed off at the way you drive because you're illegally blocking faster traffic in VA.

So now you admit you are an idiot who can't see, and that being in the left lane actually caused an incident. Yet you still claim in other posts that in 40 years of driving you have been safer by being an asshole.

Am I the only one who recognizes your stupidity?

Sorry for the late answer. I missed your post.

Yes I do it on the fly. It only takes a nudge to get the reflection out of my eye. As for readjustment I will do it on the fly also. Just lean over toward the window and nudge until I see the the side of the car again. Only takes a fraction of a second for each operation.

Harry K