Safe Speed Forums

This caused a near miss the other day, and I thought I'd share it as I haven't worked out a solution yet.

In L3 on the 5 lane section of the M25, and I need to move over into L2 as the M3 interchange is coming up. What happened next was along the lines of mirrors... signal... mano -where the hell did he come from? Actually since the cab (an MPV) doesn't have wonderful visibility from the door mirrors I do an over the shoulder check before changing lanes, but on this occasion I managed to miss a small car undertaking me in both the door and rear view mirrors, and most worringly failed to see him when I checked over my shoulder. I believe this was due to my eye height, the other vehicle's low roof line and the head rest on the near side centre row seat blocking the view through the 3rd side window. I think this was one of those situations where he moved from one blind spot to another in such a way that I was always looking in the wrong place. I'm pretty confident that had this been at night I'd have seen his head light beams on the tarmac moving towards me, but in the daylight this could easily happen again.

I think the sequence was as follows:
Rear view mirror - other car hidden by D pillar
Look over the shoulder - hidden by headrest
Door mirror - in mirror blind spot
Signal
Begin to move and happen to look through passenger door to see him alongside.

Any suggestions for me? I think I should probably change the order of my observations, but to what? Rear view, door mirror, over shoulder? Door mirror, over shoulder, rear view? Or should I just put a sign on the back saying "Sh visibility - please don't undertake"?

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

You might try one of those little convex mirrors which can be stuck in a convenient corner of the main door mirror.
The view is small, but depending on the distance from eye to mirror, you might find the view useful.

Whether it obscures any of the main view depends on the original mirror design - mine had a redundant corner.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Does no-one make a secondary blind-spot mirror that can be afixed above the main mirror thus keeping the main mirror clear? IMO it would be a good idea for manufacturers of people-carriers, vans and the like to fit them as standard if the problem with blindspots is as bad as that.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Try one of those suction mirrors in the top left-hand corner of your windscreen.

They do, but it tends to vibrate in the slipstream

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

That's helpful.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

I'll have to look at the blind spot mirror idea. The mirror sits quite deep so it might be a case of hunting for just the right one. I'll also have to ask the guy who owns it if he minds, but I can't think why anyone would object to adding stuff that may prevent a collision. Ta.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein