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Comment by dosman33 | Hacker News Reader

What's funny is that so much effort is going into these radar systems for non-autonomous vehicular systems that can be resolved by teaching people how to correctly set their side mirrors to cover their blind spots. You eliminate your blind spots by moving your side mirrors out enough that you can't see the sides of your car without tilting your head a little. You don't need to see your own car in your side mirrors.

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a15131074/how-to-adjus...

After I got my most recent vehicle I discovered it has a 24GHz rear-facing radar in order to alert me to a possible car in my blind spots. It misfires all the time and alerts me to guard rails and phantoms that don't exist. I don't need it, because I now keep my side mirrors set correctly I know where cars are beside me before the radar knows. I turn it off but now I'm curious if that actually deactivates the radar emitter or just stops alerting me to hits.

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> I don't need it, because I now keep my side mirrors set correctly I know where cars are beside me before the radar knows.

It's not there to replace you looking. It's there as an extra information source in case you make a mistake when looking. Maybe you're lucky with the your car, but even with curved ends of mirrors in mine, there's still a blind spot where I would not see a bike on the passenger's side and the little extra notification is great for that. It blinks for guard rails too, but that doesn't bother me - there's extremely rarely a reason to check the mirror on the side close to the rail.

I didn't say the radar was there to replace looking. All you do is set your mirrors correctly and then there's no more blind spot. That's the entire point of the radar system, to "fix" the alleged blind spot problem. The problem doesn't exist if people were just taught how to properly adjust their mirrors in the first place.

> there's extremely rarely a reason to check the mirror on the side close to the rail.

...

> That's the entire point of the radar system, to "fix" the alleged blind spot problem.

> The problem doesn't exist if people were just taught how to properly adjust their mirrors in the first place.

The problem being solved here is that, no matter how many mirrors of any configuration one has, they are still a squishy human who will eventually make a mistake, given that mirrors are used hundreds of times per driving trip. Or they bad-luck into a situation where another driver changes the situation faster than a reasonable, human mirror-checking regimen would reveal. These systems add a layer of safety for when, not if, that happens.

> The problem doesn't exist if people were just taught how to properly adjust their mirrors in the first place.

You're literally responding to my post where I say this is not possible on my car. There's no orientation which doesn't leave a small blind spot. Not large enough for most cars, but definitely enough to hide a person/bike.

Have an upvote, I am dumb.

Also, mirrors that curve near the far end.

Each time I visit US I'm frustrated by the american cars having flat mirrors. The blind spots are insane. I guess it's due to some weird regulation?

In EU mirrors have their last 2-4cm curved, and there's virtually no blind spot, and you don't need to adjust mirrors too precisely even.

> In EU

Definitely not everywhere in the EU. My Yaris has flat mirrors.

This - and turning your head when changing lanes in vehicles without proper curved side mirrors save lifes too.

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