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Comment by throwaway019254 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway019254

Can anybody tell me why all my US cars have enormous side-mirror blind spot? And my European cars have none? Are European cars using curved mirrors to prevent this?

Edit: I just googled it. That’s exactly what’s happening - EU side mirrors are curved to prevent blind spots.

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American drivers are simply too stupid to be able to comprehend curved mirrors, so the US government bans them on US-spec cars, and instead you get flat mirrors with a warning message.

How does that make sense? Flat mirrors don't make things look further away than they are.

The passenger side is curved, the driver’s side isn’t. But the passenger side curved mirror isn’t the same type of curve as Euro cars so there are still bigger blind spots, and the driver’s side blind spots are huge.

Exactly; I should have been more specific: EU mirrors are aspherical, so the curvature isn't consistent. The US government believes, rightly or wrongly, that American drivers are simply too stupid to properly comprehend the view from an aspherical mirror, so therefore they are banned in the US.

Would it be legal to import and install a European mirror for your car model?

Definitely not, but it's not something you'd ever be caught for. While some states have safety inspections, mirrors aren't something they check for (other than to make sure they aren't broken), or would even think to check for. But it would technically be against the regulations for allowed equipment. I suppose it could get you in trouble if you were involved in a crash and the other side's attorney found out you had a non-approved mirror installed and this somehow might have affected the crash.

That’s a ridiculous hot take. What’s so hard to understand about curved mirrors? The mirrors already have a warning on them that objects are closer than they appear.

The EU mirrors aren't curved consistently; they curve more towards the outer end (IIRC), to eliminate the blind spot and show more. Apparently this is too much for the brain of an American driver to comprehend. If you disagree with this, you'll have to take it up with the federal government, because this is their opinion.

Adjust your mirrors to a better position. The EU solution helps adjust it to what drivers think they need.

Here is an example how: https://www.defensivedriving.com/safe-driver-resources/how-t...

Yea, all the BMWs I've had I imported European mirrors for. Much better.

"Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear"

One of the better scenes in Jurassic Park.

Because drivers are setting their mirrors incorrectly.

So many people set them so that they can see the side of their own car - that's incorrect! They need to angle it out to the point where they cannot see the side of their car, that way traffic should seemlessly be visible from the rearview mirror to the sideview mirror to the driver or passenger window.

Luckily most new cars from the last 5-10 years should have blind spot warnings (even as standard on premium cars) so should be a problem that's at least slowly being solved.

I wish this were the case! Plenty of more expensive cars (~40k) still don’t have it standard. And almost no ~20-30k cars have it standard either.

They tell you to not rely on it in their manual. So you still have to check manually.

A US manual or hazard sticker would tell you not to forget your head outside the car when slamming the door shut too. I don't think manuals directed towards US customers are in any way related to safety, just legal fear. I mean it's the place where a coffee cup can have the text "caution, hot!".

They tell that about every single safety feature in cars. Reversing cameras usually always have a warning to not rely on the image, even though basically the only way to actually get a proper view what's behind you in a modern car is to get out of the car and go behind it. I imagine it's all about liability.

Looking over your shoulder isn't part of driver's ed in the US? In Germany you'd literally fail your exam if you forget to do that even once before turning. You don't even need to move your upper body, just turn your head to the side and look in that direction and you'll cover most blind spots. They also teach you how to adjust your mirrors and how to tell they're adjusted correctly. They also do a blind spot demonstration.

Any technique you learned in driver's ed is going to be less effective on a modern car than it was on an older car because modern cars have more blind spots and expect you to use the backup camera to compensate.

I think this has less to do with "modern cars" and more to do with American preferences for SUVs. Most "modern cars" in the rest of the world haven't changed much when it comes to visibility (in fact, in some cases windscreen sizes have actually increased) but because of the trend in the US over the past decades for personal cars to get bigger and sit higher on the road, I can imagine that visibility has decreased significantly.

I'm not sure I understand you correctly though. I'm aware of "parking cameras" for driving in reverse. Are you saying American cars typically have cameras covering their blind spots that are meant to be used when switching lanes or turning? Because those are the situations for which you're supposed to do a quick blind spot check by looking over your shoulder and I can't imagine Americans who don't look over their shoulders checking cameras for those.

I just meant driving in reverse. I switched from a 1998 Nissan Maxima to a 2019 Toyota Camry. With the Nissan Maxima it was easier to look out the rear view mirror or turn around and see what was going on behind the car. With the Camry it seems that you really need to use the backup camera.

I can't find anything authoritative on this so it could be I was mistaken but it was my understanding modern cars have more blind spots in order to increase crash safety performance and the backup camera is supposed to compensate.

Here's a reddit post by someone saying they are a former automotive engineer who discusses this but obviously using a reddit post as a source is not ideal:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/q1jart/c...

They have these tests and education in US too. Dust and snow can make those sensors faulty so you should still do the 'look over your shoulder'.

> They tell that about every single safety feature in cars.

> I imagine it's all about liability.

'Just ignore warnings in the manual' doesn't seem like smart strategy. Dust and snow disable those sensors frequently. Those warning are not just there for some legal reasons.

Too much government regulation.

That's a crap comment, define where and how it's "too much", considering that the vehicle design rules and regulations have literally saved millions of lives?

People forget the Edsel and "unsafe at any speed" from the 1950s/60s.

Because every SUV looks identical now as a result. There isn't a car enthusiast alive today who could identify and differentiate the top 10 SUV manufacturers in a lineup with their logos removed.

They have this thing called the metric system, too. ;D

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