Author: Loren Nelson

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Driver Safety On The Roads

Put your soft, gently body in a metal box and propel yourself at high speed amongst lots of other high-speed metal boxes driven by fallible humans. Not a recipe for safety is it?

So, firstly you must make sure you are in the best shape to be a driver. No drink or drugs allowed and make sure you are well-rested too. You need to avoid distractions and keep on with the concentration.

Your main protection comes from the equipment around you though. There are safety devices to help if you do have a crash. Cars are made to absorb energy by crumpling, seat belts will hold you in place and air bags will give you a soft landing.

You also these days have many extra measures to help keep life simple as you go. You have rain responsive wipers to clear the screen of water and heaters to keep the glass clear of ice and snow. You have sensors to tell you if you are about to back into something and ever brighter lights to illuminate the way, even in fog.

What we haven’t mastered yet is a way of ensuring we can all see all around us properly! It may sound crazy, but in this highly dangerous environment, you have large areas of the road, near to you and totally outside your field of vision.

You have your eye vision to forward and side and your review mirror for directly behind the vehicle. Then it all gets a bit shaky. Your side mirrors show some areas to the side but not others. Cars and even trucks will drift in and out of vision. The only way to be really sure is to turn your head round, leaving you careering forwards at high speed without looking where you are going!

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Blind spot mirrors for bikes

It is easy to think that motorcycles do not have blind spots and so do not need blind spot mirrors. This view is wrong. Even though the rider has fewer obstructions than the average car driver, he cannot look backwards for long. There is no rear view mirror and the side mirrors, like those on a car, will only tell part of the story.

In some ways, a bike’s side mirrors may give less width to their view. This is because, in the absence of a rear view mirror, they may be adjusted inwards, towards the rear of the bike. The wider view to the side and rear may be lost.

The blind spot mirrors can be extra mirrors just fitted onto or to the side of the existing wing mirrors. They might be convex in their lens shape to give a broader view. They may be on arms to give a wider view of both rear and side rear to the rider. They may be specialist types of mirrors that are attached to the existing mirror.

Before setting off, the rider should work with another to work out where the blind spots are and by how much they can be reduced by optimal use and placement of the new mirrors. The process can be improved further by the use of practiced and short glances over the shoulder by the rider.

It is particularly important for bikers to use their blind spot mirrors when about the change lanes. It is easy for other vehicles, especially fellow bikers, to be hidden in the blind spots and bikes, being on only two wheels, are so vulnerable to even the slightest touch. Riders should check carefully in all their mirrors and take a glance over the relevant shoulder before moving lanes.

The blind spot mirrors will not cure the problem but should be used by all bikers.

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Blind spot areas around your motor home

When you get your motor home, do not assume you can simply jump in and drive away. It will be totally different to your normal car in every way and you will need to get to know it-particularly the blind spots.

In a car, you have blind spots mainly down each side, behind the line of your best sideways glance. These are more or less similarly shaped and sized and the best defence is proper use of your wing mirrors.

In a motor home the situation is more complicated and dangerous. The extra width and length of the motor home, combined with the blocking of vision from the rear view mirror, takes the issue to another level.

The side mirrors will need to be set further away from the side of the vehicle in an attempt to gain some vision around the back and reduce the blind spot there. The driver has to familiarize himself with use of the wide mirrors on both sides to get the real benefit.

The size of the vehicle and the fact that the driver sits much nearer to one wing mirror than the other means that the near-side blind spot will be much larger than that on the off-side. The shadow of invisibility is much longer and this is a real danger when the driver considers driving in a middle lane.

Investigating the size and location of the blind spots before moving the vehicle is crucial. Do this by having someone walk around while you check the mirrors. Be aware that it will take much longer for another vehicle to emerge from the blind spot when you are moving. So each movement from lane to lane should be delayed and undertaken with caution.

The rear blind spot can also be targeted by video camera.

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Are Towing Mirrors Safe?

Towing mirrors are some form of extra mirror attached to a car whilst it is towing. Any car with a trailer or caravan behind should have some arrangement of towing mirror to give the extra vision needed. Many states insist on this, but what are the dangers?

The first problem is that towing mirrors are not an integral part of the original car. They have to be fixed on and they can of course fall off. There are many variants of fixings and you need to ensure yours are secure. Some have screw clamp arrangements and some have straps. Some use a suction method to attach to the existing mirror. Some have large scissor-type brackets which give flexibility. Some stick out a long way and others just sit on the existing mirror, but show a different perspective.

Once the mirror is on, will it stay on? Try driving around with it in place. Does it wobble or move in any way? You really must not create a further hazard by having a mirror which will fly off as you reach top towing speed.

Assess the size of the new mirror against its method of fixing. Beware of those which will stick out a long way (so creating leverage) as well as lacking any aerodynamics. If such a towing mirror is attached to your original wing mirror, the force of the wind, amplified by the length of the bracket, could easily close the wing mirror entirely, removing all vision and damaging the car.

Once you have the towing mirror on, be careful if its blind spots. They will differ from those you are used to and you must not forget that the area of vision you now have is different to what you usually enjoy. Towing mirrors are useful, but beware.

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A Better Blind Spot Mirror

When you start driving you tend to get into certain habits that you are either taught or you learn over time. If you have ever gone to make a lane change and been blasted by the shaken motorist in your blind spot then you start to make changes to the way you might carry that out in future. This is also true if you happen to be that shaken motorist who is sitting in another vehicles blind spot when they try to make a lane change without seeing you. If you are lucky you wont have contributed to the countries statistics on lane change collisions. It seems that this is something that almost every motorist on our roads has trouble with and there have been few ways to get around it.

That was until the blind spot mirror was developed. You have probably seen them they are the fish eye or bubble mirrors that are common. These mirrors actually reduce the image in the mirror in size, and come with warnings like image may be closer than it appears. These mirrors are actually the cause of many of the lane change collisions as well. The problem is that drivers have to squint and strain to make out the object or vehicle int he reflection and then they have to try and accurately guess how far they are away from them in order to safely make the lane change.

It probably comes as no surprise that many of us are not great at guessing this distance very accurately. In fact many of the vehicles involved in lane change collisions have these types of mirrors fitted. That was when MaxiView blind spot mirrors came up with the most logical and effective designed blind spot mirror. MaxiView designed a mirror that enlarges images reflected by up to three times their actual size, allowing drivers ample time to determine if the lane change is safe or not.

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A Blind Spot Mirror That Makes Perfect Sense For New Drivers

Choosing a vehicle for your teenager when they are learning to drive is a parents worse nightmare. Not only because the chances of your budget stretching to purchase the sports car with the soft top that they so desperately want is limited, to say the least, but because unlike your teenager you are going to value their safety before the color and make of the vehicle. When it comes to being safe on our roads then you can make some very smart choices about increasing that level of caution by including one of the most innovative products to your teens car.

MaxiView blind spot mirrors are the worlds most adjustable stick on blind spot mirror in the world. They attach to the upper corner of the vehicles existing side mirrors and do not block any view that may be needed. In fact the area that the MaxiView blind spot mirrors sit is where the sky would normally be reflected. With the patented ball and socket design it wont matter if your teen is tall like a basket baller or a more petite driver, the Maxi View mirrors are fully adjustable and can be used by anyone.

Consider the lane change as the most dangerous of road moves to make and you can quickly see why the MaxiView blind spot mirrors are an essential item to place on your teens car side mirrors. Retailing at less than $30 a pair they make perfect sense in including with your vehicle purchase. One of the great things about these blind spot mirrors is that they can be removed from the vehicle they are on and attached to their next vehicle. Unlike other blind spot mirrors such as the bubble or fish eye mirrors on the market, MaxiView blind spot mirrors enlarge the image reflected so your teen will not have to accurately estimate the distance of the other vehicle in their blind spot.

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A Change To The Way We Learn To Drive

When we take our first driving examination – for those of us that can remember back that far, you may recall your instructor asking you to check your blind spot before making any lane changes. The way that the instructor would have told you to do this would have been to get you to check both your rear view mirror, your side mirrors and then to look over your shoulder and physically ascertain that there is no one or no vehicle lurking in your blind spot.

One of the biggest problems with this type of instruction is that a driver who is learning to master both speed and steering has to take their eyes from the road and turn in their seat to check for other vehicles. This is surely a recipe for disaster, and if the statistics for collisions when changing lanes on our nations roads are any indication then indeed a disastrous instruction it is. There have been some products that were made available to remedy the blind spot issue but have left motorists on a whole, let down.

That was when MaxiView mirrors designed an innovative and effective solution to the problem of blind spots. The MaxiView mirror is the most adjustable stick on mirror in the world. It can be adhered to the existing side mirrors and will give an enlarged reflection of the vehicles traveling behind. The MaxiView mirror is a far safer option when traveling on our roads. If you are learning to drive or you have been a driver for some time, then it will come as a relief to not have to take your eyes from the road when determining if there is a vehicle in your blind spot. The MaxiView mirror allows the driver to see what is behind their vehicle without taking their eyes from the road.