How do you adjust your side mirrors?

[TEG]

After decades of driving I just had a thought that maybe I was adjusting my side mirrors to look too much towards the car. I had instinctively been setting them so my view is "straight backwards" and I see the door handles of my car in each mirror. Realizing that a few times I was caught off guard by someone in my "blind spot" that I couldn't see with my mirrors, but could see when I turned my head very far around, I thought I would try pointing the side mirrors outwards a bit more. I don't really need to see all the way back in the distance, and I think a smaller blind spot would be a good tradeoff. After driving this way for a few days I got used to it and think it is an improvement. (Never too old to learn something new I hope).

Today I checked and lo and behold I see that some sites recommend this very change in habit:

How to Set Rearview Mirrors to Eliminate Blind Spots - wikiHow
Adjusting Your Mirrors Correctly - Smart Motorist

[DaveD]

Yes, indeed! This way of adjusting the mirrors was something that a friend of mine tried to sell me on many years ago. I resisted until I bought a Nissan 350Z, which has signifcant obstructions of the rearward view. It took about a week to get comfortable with it, but now I do lane changes and highway merging without any problems. I evangelize this technique whenever I get rides with other friends or co-workers and see that they have their mirrors set "wrong".

[doug]

The way I've always done it (and I think the way I learned in Driver's Ed back in high school) was to adjust the side mirrors so that their view just barely overlaps with with that of the rear view mirror. This isn't what most people do?

[vfx]

My exterior rear view mirrors have those "stick on" mirrors in the corner. They are fish-eye convex like the security mirrors in a store. Works well for a big truck mirror -they probably take up to much real estate on a small sports car mirror.

Gets low scores here:
Auto Safety Editors' Results: Best 2007 Car Gadgets & Automotive Safety Technologies

edit:
Took me awhile to firgure out what they were selling. Looks like they tap into power mirrors and let you scan the blind spot by "panning" the mirror with a seperate swith. Kinda cool but I wonder what the life cycle is of those motors and plastic gears?

[Cobos]

I've always done what the drivers ed teacher told me as I've only had my license for about 4 years. He said turn them far enough away from the car that you barely can see the door handles at the edge. Though I haven't experimented with this... maybe I should. I do turn my neck whenever I'm crossing my blind spot, like exiting a roundabout or changing lanes...

Cobos

[TEG]

Ford launching blind-spot mirror on Edge this fall: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

[shark2k]

Since TEG linked to this in another thread I'm gonna bring it back. This has to do with what doug said, (I've only been driving for 6 years). I think I was talking with my brother, but how to adjust the mirrors came up in a conversation with somebody. I looked online and basically found what the image depicts. One thing that what I found did say though was that you should be able to follow an object from the right side mirror all the way around the back of the car to the left side mirror and see it the whole time. So when you transition from right side mirror to rearview mirror, you should be able to keep the object in your view and not have a gap. It is basically the same as what doug said about overlapping what you see.

-Shark2k

[roopocket12]

I got redirected to this thread and this is very helpful indeed. I have never touched my mirrors when since I bought them.

[johnr]

I was adjusting my mirrors the wrong way also, until I came across this thread a few months back. No one taught me how to do it right. I'm sure a lot of other people just don't know any better either. Anyway, since I changed them according to these instructions, it took a little while to get used to it but the improvement has been huge! No more car headlights shining into the mirror, or the sun shining through the mirror in the evening, blinding me. Blind spots have been significantly reduced. I know I'm much safer now as a result. It's cool when a car is passing, to see the car enter the side mirror as it leaves the rear view mirror, and then appear as expected in my peripheral vision just as it leaves the side view mirror. This is the way it's supposed to be. Thank you, TEG, for posting this - it has been very helpful!

[ChargeIt!]

Ditto what John said ... has helped me tremendeously too. THANKS, TEG !