Just to be clear, you still have to look over before you do change lanes. It's just that you don't have to look as often to figure out that you can't change lanes yet.

This is in contrast to what the article from NHTSA says:

"With this new setting, it is no longer necessary to turn and look into the blindzones."

... which is in contrast to what the original article quite emphatically says:

"... move your head or you're dead ..."

I like the novel mirror arrangement and will try it but I hope people will follow the advice of the fighter pilot, and not NHTSA, and continue to move their heads.

I tried the different angle a couple of years ago because it seemed like the smart thing to do—increase the number of things I see.

I found that my blind spots were reduced but not eliminated. It’s scary to think that somebody on the road might stop looking over after adjusting their mirrors.

One solution that I have more faith in is the little convex “blind-spot mirrors.” Those actually seem to cover everything in the blind spot and then some more (at least on the driver side).

If you can replace your car's driver's side mirror with aspheric european mirror, do so. (Assuming you're in the US).

I had the euro glass on my Golf, and the ability to see more than just a massive grille filling up your entire mirror glass on the driver's side is a godsend. I can actually see a car 2 lanes over moving into the same lane I'm trying to move into, using just my mirrors.

I've used this mirror adjustment method forever, and it really does eliminate blind spots, especially given correct mirrors. It depends on the car, though -- our Tesla 3 has pretty bad blind spots in the peripheral area because the glass doesn't adjust far enough out, and they haven't started selling the car in Europe yet, so you can't get the correct glass for it.

It seems to me like angling the mirror further outward could be done with mirrors (or cameras) installed inside the car. The advantage of the outside mirror is that you can see the side of the car.

So if you prefer to drive with BGE mirrors, wouldn't you be better off leaving the outer mirrors so you can see along your side, and a bit to the rear, and install auxiliary outward-angled mirrors on the dashboard inside the car?

I know in one of our cars that the B-column is absolutely huge, and even swiveling my head is not enough to check the left blind spot, because that B-column is fat enough to hide a car. I have to check an auxiliary convex mirror before changing lanes left. That's mounted on the wing mirror, but I would have preferred it to be on the dash, because it eats up a lot of space on the regular mirror, and is still rather small in its own right.

I don't remember if it was 1/3 or 2/3 (a lot anyways) of motorcycle accidents were caused by another car driver, and mostly due that they didn't see the motorcycle so a high-visibility jacket (yellow/orange with reflective stripes) is a must imho.

I'm not going to wear a dorky-looking yellow vest even if it does make me safer, but it is very useful to assume that I am always effectively invisible. If you expect that drivers will constantly cut you off, pull out in front of you, and even merge directly into your lane, motorcycles are nimble enough that you can generally see the problem coming and react in time to avoid catastrophe when it inevitably happens.

>many of my clothes are dark

I've taken so many risks like this when I was using a bike: dark grey coat: check, black pants: check, dark grey backpack: check, black shoes: check. And usually my light (only in the back) is barely visible because of using old batteries and forgetting to change them.

Partly, the instinct is about feeling trashy, and having to replace worn-out old junk as it accumulates stains, scuff marks, battle damage.

It feels wasteful to have to discard perfectly useful items, because they look worn out. We all know that black, dark items tend show the least amount of wear, and in the interest of efficient frugality, some of us gravitate toward that instinct.

You look at a white t-shirt, and you know it's going to show pit stains by the end of the year. A black t-shirt might show some white accumulation inside the armpits, but not outside, and you really are only going to have to trash it, once some holes show up. Same with socks.

So too with hi-viz stuff. You just don't want to buy something, and throw it out, the moment it gives a sense of unintended imperfection. It's more an equipment maintenance perspective, than a live, situational awareness point of view. The best equipment is the stuff you have, and the stuff you have is the stuff you keep.

Being a little OCD, but that's what's going on under the hood, from my own perspective.

Everything costs money. Everything has tradeoffs.

Safety is no exception. It's all about management of risk. If you seek to mitigate all risk you'll find yourself with even more risk because your bank account is now empty. The internet is great at telling other people how to spend their money so of course everyone will tell you you need the "best" helmet and the "most" reflective jacket, etc, etc.

If you don't care about looks, you could just get some reflective tape (the kind used for trucks, e.g. V82). Use it on the bike and helmet and you'll probably be more visible than someone in a fancy jacket. Spending couple bucks on safety seems like a decent tradeoff.

It was more about taste than being cheap about clothes, but I understand your perspective. But I still kept most of those clothes because they are still in good enough state.

>check out the middle cyclist

>https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/...

That part of the article blew my mind. That cyclist is practically invisible. I consider myself an extraordinarily safe driver and I know I would not see that cyclist.

Time to get a high viz vest for the motorcycle and bicycle rides.

I always use BGE. My dad basically nagged me into remembering it always. I tell people who have never done it, go find a parking lot with just a few cars in it and convince themselves that it works and that it is safer than twisting their head around to see backwards.

A warning, do NOT use this mirror arrangement if you drive in a crowded city and share the road with scooters, motorcycles, bikes, and pedestrians.

BGE is great if you drive on big roads and mainly share it with other cars.

However if you drive in a city with tons of scooters, you know the ones that will swarm your car, then they will all be in your blind spot if you use this mirror arrangement.

My Ford car has smaller convex mirrors in the corners of the normal side mirrors and they are a godsend in busy city driving. I really miss them when driving other cars.

I'm surprised to see this is the first mention of convex mirrors. I get some of the stick-on variety for any car I'm driving, as it dramatically increases the viewing angle for my side mirrors. I get them for my friends to put on their mirrors, too. If a $6 item can help avoid any kind of collision, that's an insane ROI.

I agree with you on the stick-on mirrors.

My current car has convex mirrors built in, and I find them very distracting. The little $6 stick on is a superior product.

I completely agree. Although, alternatively, you can keep BGE and just move your head a lot more when in the crowded city environment, if that isn't your primary driving environment. It isn't nearly as big of a problem to look sideways in the low urban speed environments, IMO.

Turning your head backwards gives you wider peripheral vision with the properties described in the article (i.e. quick motion detection).

When reversing in perpendicular pedestrian/cycle traffic (such as coming out a driveway, or if you accidentally ended up over a pedestrian crossing when the red light got you and you want to go back a few feet) looking backwards is much safer.

Requirement for a past job was that I take a traffic safety course, and one of the things they taught us was to never back up when you were caught out in the crosswalk because pedestrians will frequently walk behind the car. Better to sit where you are and feel stupid.

None of those cyclists are riding in a particularly sensible position, it's patently unclear where they are going, are they in lane 1 or lane 2, or moving from one to another?

In the NHTSA pdf? They're roughly in the middle of the lane.

In the article, specifically the picture they appear in https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/...

The argument "it's the cyclist fault she got killed for not wearing bright colours" is practically the same as "it's the woman's fault she got raped for wearing a short skirt"

Maybe cyclists should be forced to wear high vis clothes so car drivers can drive around without awareness. Maybe schoolkids in the UK should wear bullet proof vests so gun owners don't accidentally shoot them. Maybe women should be forced to wear burkas so men don't get tempted. These arguments are very similar logic.

However if cyclists are to take some responsibility for their safety on the road, not riding at the edge of a lane is the first thing to do, not wearing a burka or a flak jacket.

It looks to me like they're in a perfectly sensible position - just outside the door zone as they approach some parallel-parked cars. Am I missing something?

They are in the second lane, then they are too close to the left most lane. A vehicle (especially a large vehicle) passing up the inside could be very close. If the yellow rider were to move slightly to the left, the blue one would probably swerve towards the left lane, but there's no where to go.

They are also encouraging in-lane overtaking, which might just about work for a motorbike or another bike, but anything wider would be a problem

The yellow topped one is probably OK in lane position if the other cyclists weren't there (but why not another metre to the right). However he's very close to the blue one. The blue and stripy ones run the risk of being hemmed in by traffic from the rear

Thanks for the reply! Studying the photo more, I see that you are right about them being in the left of the second traffic lane - it's not parked cars like I thought previously.

They are riding at the left side of the usable road.

Note the park cars ahead (and probably also behind) make the lane to their left unusable.

Please don't post flamewar-style comments to HN.

Cyclists vs. drivers is consistently one of the most vicious flamewar topics we see, so this is not a theoretical question.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Where I live people cycle and walk on old country roads all the time. I am a cyclist and have no issue sharing the road, but I find myself starting to hate the cyclists and pedestrians because none of them seem to have any idea that when they are out at night and wearing black/dark clothes, not having any reflective material on their clothes or bike, or have any type of light makes them almost invisible, well invisible until I'm on top of them.

I have outstanding night time vision, I've had it checked, and I have outstanding depth perception, also checked.

If seeing in the light is tricky, darkness is probably 10x worse.

Just last night I had a guy crossing wearing a black hoodie, black pants, and black shoes, he was crossing along a stretch of 2 lane road where there are apartment buildings but no street lights, or cross walk. I saw him but only because the two cars in front of me illuminated him. The guy was walking on the shoulder near the white line, I don't think the cars in front of me saw him at all, even when they passed him because he almost got clipped by the mirror of the car in front of me. I guess that was too close for him so he just turned and started crossing, he never looked, and I was maybe 30 yards away driving the speed limit which was 40. Luckily I had seen him and was fully expecting him to do something stupid so I was ready when he started to cross.

I live near a university, and there is a street that runs right through the middle of the school. It has 3 different types of lights, high pressure sodium, LED, and Halogen all in about 50 yards, the section of the street is well lit, but because of the different lights and the color of the light it's damn near impossible to see students when they are darting out from between cars. A lot of people I know avoid that street at night because they feel like they can't see anything event though it's well lit. I've notified the university, and they don't even respond to my letters.

> Where I live people cycle and walk on old country roads all the time. I am a cyclist and have no issue sharing the road, but I find myself starting to hate the cyclists and pedestrians because none of them seem to have any idea that when they are out at night and wearing black/dark clothes, not having any reflective material on their clothes or bike, or have any type of light makes them almost invisible, well invisible until I'm on top of them.

How do you cope with cows? (dark coloured ones) Or fallen branches?

In a metal cocoon of a car, you're cut off from almost all your senses. Even just your visual sense your awareness is far worse in a car than when walking or cycling. Add to that the likelihood you're traveling a lot faster and it's a recipe for disaster.

Is it? Is it really victim blaming or is it simply making a strong recommendation?

We make strong recommendations for other things, like telling people not to walk alone in the dark. That's not considered victim blaming.

Should this also apply to pedestrians, or only to cyclists? Because everybody is a pedestrian once they get out of their car.

I used to walk to work, and I always wore a hi viz vest on winter mornings when it was still dark. But none of my co-workers (who still had to cross streets to get from the parking lot to the office) did.

I like using the car park analogy. It is perfectly legal to park in a bad neighborhood. If your car is broken into then the thief should be sent to jail. You are still dumb for parking there. This isn't victim blaming.

We blame the drivers of cars without headlights on for night time collisions, why would cyclists be any different?

We don't blame drivers of dark-colored cars. Cyclists everywhere I know of have to have lights up to an appropriate standard.

We would if they only had dark colored lights on!

The minimum standard for lighting on bikes is really inadequate, IMO.

Sure, and in the UK at least it's a requirement to have lights on when riding at night.

Can't remember the last time I saw a cyclist with lights. They seem to think that they don't need them if in a cycle lane, even when there is nothing separating it from the rest of the road.

Can't remember the last time I saw a cyclist without lights (at night of course). But then it's been summer and thus daylight most of the time.

Are they wrong? Other vehicles have no business being in a bike lane, by definition (short of an emergency like avoiding an imminent collision).

Yes they are wrong, they are required by law to have lights. The cycle lane isn't continuous, there are breaks in it at every junction.

A car travelling in the opposite direction has to cross the path of the cycle lane to turn into a cross street. Not being able to see that a cycle is coming towards you isn't going to end well for the cyclist.

Where I live, there are laws mandating the minimum distance a vehicle has to be from a cyclist when passing (1.5m) - this distance is not covered by the available clearance in the cycling lane.

If you can't see a cyclist is in the lane, it's difficult to give them safe clearance, and driving as though you are always giving clearance to cyclists means driving closer to the other traffic lane, increasing risk of vehicular collision.

They are wrong. The law in some (all?) EU countries fortunately mandates lighting.

I have seen bike lanes where it's expected that cars will at least partially drive onto the lane because the road is too narrow.

And it's kinda ironic: pedestrians will likely blunder into the bike lane without looking, just like bikers sometimes suddenly pop before cars without the slightest care in the world.

It does not assign blame. It offers a way to avoid accidental collisions.

And still good advice.

Defense in depth.

Dead or alive what matters is that you were right.

I've seen pedestrians cross the street without a walk light in a downpour where visibility is five feet at midnight on a poorly illuminated intersection while wearing all black.

Cars have lights not just so they can see, but so others can see them. Pedestrians absolutely should have the same, or at least something approaching reflective clothing.