daredevil

You were alert enough to your surroundings that you 'left yourself an out', a maneuver only a savvy road user can make and a pretty beneficial one I'd say.

well put

I'll go with that.

Tsuru

Absolutely! So.... When you putting this bad boy on:



SAFETY FIRST! Stack the deck even further in your favour!

Tsuru

And one of these!



More deck stacking, eh?

Tsuru

And for the night, better to double stack there with some extra lights:

turbo2L

I bet if you get motorcycle mirrors they would work like the ones on motorcycles which are not dangerous.

msincredible

Some motorcycles use bicycle mirrors, actually.

daredevil

Do you ride in the dark regularly? What lights do you use? You seem to be saying you don't need good light at night? Oh wait, this is sarcasm isn't it? My, how clever.

FYI, I use a Dinotte tail light that would put that green thing to shame. And guess what? I even use the sucker in the daytime, imagine that! Wanna make fun of me?

Treespeed

Extra light...where are the other lights?

robncircus

So what would have happened if there had been cars in the oncoming lane? Sounds like putting two wheels off the edge of the pavement could be veering. Was it more of a turn? Listen, I'm glad you were able to evade and accident but to say it was 100% the mirror is incorrect.

I am not in the mirrors are unsafe crowd. I don't think anything negative of either those that use them nor those that don't. However, as several have mentioned, it's the holier than thou mentality that irks me. Anyway, ride safe.

Rob

BikeWise1

Tsuru, you are about as subtle as a fart in a space helmet....

BikeWise1

I would have used the information at hand to make the best judgement possible, of course. It is entirely possible that the sight of oncoming traffic might well have gotten the attention of the SUV driver, who then might have noticed, and avoided me. Who knows? My point was that had I made the assumption, as many who eschew mirrors make, that other vehicles will avoid me, then I would likely not be typing this.

Can we settle on "drifted"? He drifted off the road surface briefly, then corrected his course after looking up.

Ride safe yerself!

zonatandem

Have used the Take-A-Look eyeglass frame mounted mirror for years and thousands of miles.
Best mirror I've ever used; have used eyeglass mounted mirrors since the mid-70s when a dental mirror was taped to the temple of the glasses.
After 300,000 miles of cycling am still alive and well . . .
Oh, been hit by a car doing 45mph (not 50) . . . mirror did not help, but helmet did!

daredevil

Then you take the next best way out of course, this ain't rocket science, it's f'n bike riding.

K&K_Dad

Ok i tried to read the 8 pages,(really did), and I don't know why someone didn't talk about how mirrors help you on the sidewalks.newho..

I assume that every car out there is going to hit me. It's a grand assumption but in my neck of the woods it's what I have to do. Mind you I don't have a lot of traffic in the off months but during 'tourist season' I do. I have no shoulder to ride on and no place to just 'pull off the road.' Would a mirror help, probably not. Would it be dangerous, probably not. Mirrors are just like knowing the bomb's getting ready to drop in overhead. You know it's there but it's still gonna suck when it lands. Personally I'd rather not know.

daredevil

As a matter of fact, they do. I may take my dog for a walk with the bike on a trail/sidewalk and with a mirror I always know if someone is coming from behind so I can get out of their way. I don't have to be constantly turning around.

Changing subjects, saying that what is going to happen is going to happen is just kind of silly. People, you do have at least a little control over your fate out there, it just takes some common sense and awareness.

You said that you have absolutely no escape route? What, is there a guard rail all along your ride that traps you in? That would suck man.

Also, I think we've all figured out that all riding situations are not the same, duh. Before anybody can absolutely criticize someones riding ability, they should ride a mile in their saddle probably.

BikeWise1

Wow. Total abdication of awareness and self-preservation. You sound like one of the kids from the rough section of town-they expect to get shot. Might not be today, but it's coming.

Fugazi Dave

How do you think your family would feel about that kind of outlook on the subject? You have a choice when it comes to whether or not you try to do something about an impending bad situation. Can you *always* do something about it? No, but you'd be surprised how often you can pull something spectacular out of your ass when you need to. Giving up awareness is asking for trouble.

Tsuru

haha! Yeah, subtlety is not my forte.

tntyz

Okay, I just got back from my morning ride. A couple of observations regarding helmet-mounted mirror:

- There is no blind spot front and left caused by the mirror. None, nada, zip. The spot covered by the mirror is seen by your right eye instead. This has become so natural to me that it was hard to figure out what was going on at first. There is, of course, an area of monocular vision that can easily be shifted by slight head movements.

- I personally scan behind me about every 2-3 seconds.

- I can't really identify a blind spot behind me. Slight movement of the head allows me to scan everything. Unless I need to see the road surface three feet behind my back wheel.

- I literally cannot turn around far enough to see anything worthwhile regarding traffic behind me. I tried from the drops, hoods, and tops. The best I can do is shift my right hand to the center of my bar, drop my left shoulder, and twist in the seat. That still leaves a big area that I can only catch from my peripheral vision. Note: I wear glasses that have only moderate size lenses and I am certainly not known for my flexibility.

What do I do with the information? I plan. This is mostly rural riding, cars approaching at 50 mph. Car back. Hill ahead. How blind is it? Can I hear a car up? What kind of vehicle am I dealing with? How steep is the ditch? You get the idea.

Suicide on a stick - not for me. Lifesaver is more like it.

Tsuru

Nice! Thanks man! That was one of my worries with these things (besides the dork factor and suddently worrying TOO much about oncoming cars).

umd

like I said, people who feel this way about mirrors are usually bad at turning around.

I don't think anyone is really claiming that they are dangerous, except of course the OP, which nobody is taking seriously.

coasting 

oh come on! that's below the belt.

SPlKE 

Actually, I called helmet mounted mirrors suicide on a stick. And I was dead serious.

The time I used one for about a week, I couldn't focus on the image in the little mirror and still keep the other 180 or so degrees of vision around me in focus.

That and the whole idea of having a rigid stalk of plastic basically pointed at my left eyeball, which I imagined could end up embedded deep in my eye socket in a crash.


.

SSP

Here's how mine helps, and how I ride differently with the mirror.

If I'm on a narrow road, and see that an overtaking vehicle is not moving over enough to give me room, I move my bike LEFT in the lane as the vehicle approaches. This forces the overtaking driver to also move left. As he gets close, I move back to the right assuring maximum separation. This is particularly important with large vehicles, and pickups towing trailers.

This maneuver is simple and routine with my Take a Look helmet mounted mirror. It would be difficult if not impossible to do if I had to turn around to monitor overtaking traffic.

Exactly as with car mirrors, a proper cycling mirror enhances one's situational awareness. And when I'm out there playing in rush hour traffic in my underwear...that's a good thing.

Note: they are probably somewhat less useful in heavy urban traffic where bikes and cars are going about the same speed. And I don't wear one when I'm racing either. But for most of us who ride on rural, suburban, and in-town roads, a good mirror is useful. I ride more confidently, and more assertively, with it than without.

K&K_Dad

I wouldn't say that I have absolutely no escape route, it's just that most, if not all of them in my area include 5' ditches. I have to stay away from main roads because there is just no place to go if I need to. That's why I stay to the side streets. At least there I could pull into a driveway if I had to. And I was just using the bomb analogy to say that unless you see someone from far away and start planning your escape it's pretty much, you're gonna see the person coming down on you before you have time to think. That was all. I wasn't trying to say that mirrors are futile.