That happens to many of us from time to time. Whatever you do, a small mirror doesn't have a wide enough angle to eliminate all possible dead spots. The only safe answer is to turn your head for a fraction of a second, just enough to see in your peripheral vision if there are any surprises lurking in your dead spot.

 

Another suggestion is to simply give more time.
Look
Wait
Signal
Wait
Look
Change lanes

We usually act to suddenly.

 

True, and a crying shame too, I would support regulations
that require mirrors that when properly adjusted have no significant
blind spots. I however failed to even properly adjust the mirrors
I have, thus creating a blind spot I didn't know was there and
wasn't checking.

As part of looking for add-on mirrors
I found a lot of articles on the internet about how to adjust your
mirrors to nearly eliminate blind spots, even with small car mirrors.
They all pretty much advocated the same thing, and were similar
to what I was doing, but were better spelled out, and pointed the
mirrors a little further away from the car than I did.

For everyone's benefit:
They use a small gap from where the rearview mirror field ends to where
the sideview mirrors start, and require you to lean slightly towards
each side-view mirror to close the gap. I was using no gap and no leaning.
Their method nearly eliminates all blind spots even with small mirrors.
The gap should be smaller than a nearby car or motorcycle so one can't
be invisible to you without a lean.

The lean is superior to requiring a full head turn they claim,
since that requires you to take your eyes off the road briefly,
and people with neck problems can't do a full head turn.

I have switched to their adustment techniques and added
the Wink and the stick-ons, overkill perhaps, and the Wink
may not last. But even without the Wink it is a major improvement.

- Kurt

 

I have always bought the biggest fish-eye mirror I could allow real estate for and put it on both side mirrors. My HCH has the 2" ones, my Forester has plenty of room for the 3". These are all you need, yeah they're a little small, but they do the job. You can see EVERYTHING, and not have to turn your head. I wouldn't drive a car without them. They're so cheap that sometimes I have added them to rental cars if it's a long rental.

 

Forgive me but I have to ask this.

How could you not know your mirror is not adjusted.
I mean if you look and don't see the side of your car and some traffic how could it NOT occur to you that you need to adjust the mirror?

Do you recall what you DID see in the mirror?

 

IMHO this is one thing that's wrong with our world. Everybody wants to legislate what they think is best for everyone. I think it is the drivers responsiblity to adjust the car properly for their safety. No one person't idea about it is right for everyone so the only proper approach IMHO is to leave enough options open to accomodate everyone. Those of us who drive with trailers a lot HATE it when they make the right side mirror wide angle because it distorts the trailer angle and corrupts depth perception. Those who don't want to add on an auxilary wide angle mirror of their own probably prefer that distorted one. In any case, I want the option to find my own solution, and I want you to have that option too.



As for adjusting your side mirrors to target the blind spot - this may work for some but those who rely on the side mirrors to judge distances between their car and objects in the mirror will miss being able to see a portion of their car in it.

Obviously there's no shortage of ideas for how to solve this problem. Everyone has to ultimately find something that works for them.

 

I saw nothing but empty road.

Later, I sat in a parking lot, checked where the field of view
for the rear mirror ended, expected my right-rear mirror
field-of-view to begin where the rear mirror left off,
but it was off by quite a bit, about two car lengths at 50 ft.

I did see the side of my car, and in retrospect, a bit more
than I should have.

And yeah, it was dumb of me not to think of it earlier.

It just wasn't off by enough to be obvious.

Both incidents were in the same spot when an impatient person
tried to blow by me in the right lane on city streets just after a left turn.
I was attempting to move into the right lane politely, signalling
first, and was interrupted by the sound of a horn, and I never saw
anyone.

The problem with that scenario is they will move very rapidly
through your rear field of view, from the rear mirror, into the right
mirror, and into the blind spot all in a second or so. Even
if you check all your mirrors and do a full head turn you could still
miss them if your timing is off.

But with either a fish-eye stick-on or the Wink mirror it won't matter
where they are or how fast they are moving because
the field of view will be huge.

There is also something in me that thinks more leadfoot would
avoid the problem. :-)

- Kurt

 

Here are my experiences with all those mirrors I bought.

I bought the wink, some square stick-ons, and some 2" round stick-ons.

Bottom line, zimbop was right, the round stick-ons are the best. :-)
I am not using the Wink anymore, too much trouble.

 

Everything is relative. The main reason my wife chose the HCHII over the Prius was her perception that it was difficult to see out the back because of the combination of headrests, odd roof slope, and the 'bar' across the back of the hatch lid. With the HCHII, and all our recent cars in fact, we remove the center headrest and lower the outboard ones as much as possible. If there is a passenger, they put them up. If the seat is occupied, you can't see through their head anyway.

Use the mirrors and turn your head. You'll be fine.