{"id":2342,"date":"2017-06-05T07:00:28","date_gmt":"2017-06-04T21:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/?p=2342"},"modified":"2020-09-20T14:49:52","modified_gmt":"2020-09-20T04:49:52","slug":"check-rearview-wing-mirrors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/check-rearview-wing-mirrors\/","title":{"rendered":"How often should you check your rearview and wing mirrors?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Driving experts recommend you glance at your mirrors every 5-8 seconds.<\/strong> That sounds like a lot but let&#8217;s look at what can happen in just 5 seconds:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you&#8217;re in motorway traffic travelling at 100km\/h you will have travelled 138 metres in 5 seconds, and that&#8217;s a lot of ground covered where you could have been past on-ramps with other vehicles entering the motorway, or a vehicle could have pulled into the overtaking lane to overtake you.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re moving in motorway traffic that&#8217;s crawling, a motorcyclist could be filtering between the lanes or an ambulance could be trying to overtake you (something you can miss if you have your music on loud and can&#8217;t hear the sirens).<\/li>\n<li>In busy city traffic, cyclists could be filtering between lanes or riding along the left of slower moving traffic.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re driving below the speed limit (e.g. when towing a trailer) other vehicles can catch up with you quite quickly, and you should drive to allow them to pass when possible. Checking your mirrors while towing also lets you keep a check on the load you&#8217;re pulling. A vehicle travelling at 100km\/h gains 30 metres every 5 seconds if you are driving at 80km\/h. If you haven&#8217;t looked at your mirrors for a minute, a car could have come from a third of a kilometre behind you to be right on your rear bumper.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When we check our mirrors every 5 seconds we&#8217;re not taking a long look, it&#8217;s just a glance to check nothing has changed dramatically. If your gaze is lingering in your mirror, you&#8217;re spending too much time not looking ahead, and that could cause you to miss a developing hazard in front of you.<\/p>\n<p>You will also be checking your mirror every time you want to change lanes, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/gap-selection-practice\/\">turn into or out of another road<\/a>, brake, pull over onto the side of the road, or move off from the side of the road.<\/p>\n<p>While we&#8217;re driving we have to take in a lot of visual stimuli and our short-term memory for what&#8217;s around us is not that effective. Glancing in the mirrors refreshes your memory of what&#8217;s around you constantly so that if something happens ahead and you need to take evasive action you&#8217;ve got a good idea of what&#8217;s on either side of you to give you more options.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, to be effectively using your mirrors you must have <a href=\"\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/how-to-adjust-your-wing-mirrors-correctly\/\">set your mirrors up correctly<\/a>\u00a0with the rear view mirror showing the whole of your rear window and the wing mirrors not showing any of the sides of your vehicle unless you move your head.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2343\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2343\" class=\"size-large wp-image-2343\" src=\"\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/dinosaur-in-car-wing-mirror-595x387.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"358\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/dinosaur-in-car-wing-mirror-595x387.jpg 595w, https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/dinosaur-in-car-wing-mirror-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/dinosaur-in-car-wing-mirror-768x500.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/dinosaur-in-car-wing-mirror.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-2343\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Check your wing mirrors every 5 minutes in case a VL Commodore is approaching from behind.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Driving experts recommend you glance at your mirrors every 5-8 seconds. That sounds like a lot but let&#8217;s look at what can happen in just 5 seconds: If you&#8217;re in motorway traffic travelling at 100km\/h you will have travelled 138<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/check-rearview-wing-mirrors\/\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[158],"class_list":["post-2342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","tag-rear-view-mirror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2342"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2346,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2342\/revisions\/2346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.driverknowledgetests.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}