Wing Mirror Position | Diary Of An ADI

7/23/2019 Wing Mirror Position | Diary Of An ADI

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Wing Mirror Position + Usage

his article was originally published in 2011, but it has been popular recently so I have updated it.

meone found the blog on the search term “adi how to check wing mirror position”. A bit of a strange

uestion if it was from an ADI, but for pupils it is often a problem – certainly to start with.

The wing mirrors

should be adjusted

to give the

maximum view

behind without

creating blind spots.

My own lesson

plans use the image

shown on here –

however, this is not

intended to provide

illimetre-perfect guides for where to put the mirrors!

he bottom line is that you aren’t interested seeing birds and aeroplanes, or road kill. You want to see

much as possible of what is happening behind you and to your sides. You don’t want to be looking at

lf of your own car. It isn’t rocket science.

urrently teach in a Ford Focus and I’ve found that a good position position for the wing mirrors from

e pupil’s position in the driving seat is when they can just see the tip of the front door handle in the

treme bottom right of the nearside mirror, and the extreme bottom left of the offside mirror.

nywhere near that position is fine – it doesn’t have to be measured with a ruler! Obviously, if you’re

ADI using a different car, you set the mirrors yourself and then look for a reference you can explainyour pupils when they have to do it.

ne point I do stress to my learners is that if they plan on using the mirrors for any reversing

anoeuvres, it makes sense to adjust them consistently each time they get ion the car (during their

ckpit drill). If they don’t, what they see can vary – and early on that can be a problem.

n ADI needs to have their own reference positions from the passenger seat so they know if the pupil is

ing things properly. These “references” are just based on instinct, because with the mirror positionu have to remember that all pupils are different – some sit 4 feet behind the steering wheel because

ey’re 6! 7" tall, whereas others sit only a few centimetres away because they’re 4! 10"! You just get a

el for it over time.



emember one occasion when one of mine had driven to a location for a manoeuvre. Just before we

arted I casually glanced at her offside mirror and something struck me as being odd. I couldn’t

mmediately pinpoint it, but then it hit me: I could see the side of the car in it from the passenger seat.

hen I tested the position later I confirmed that she would have been unable to see anything but the

de of the car and quite probably just her own reflection!

ord knows what she was thinking, or better still what she thought she was seeing. She’d been through

r cockpit drill and insisted everything was OK. She was religiously doing the MSM routine

roughout the lesson, but was obviously seeing nothing at all. It just goes to show what you have to

ok out for.

What is the correct position for my mirrors?

ou want to see as much as possible of what’s going on behind you and to your side, and not leave any

nnecessary blind spots.

You can see from

the diagram that

there is overlap of

the mirrors’

coverage behind the

car – but you don’t

want this overlap so

far behind that you

have huge blind

spots that could

conceal things, nor

do you want to

increase the blind

spot area to your

left and right (i.e

where the red car

is).

There is no

advantage to being

le to see the birds and aeroplanes anymore than there is to being able to check out the squashed

dgehogs. And it goes without saying that the interior mirror is not for checking your hair and make-

p.

ow you achieve the correct mirror setting is really up to you, but it makes sense to have a consistent



sition so that you can see the same space around the car whenever you go out. If the mirrors are too

gh then you won’t see the lines when you’re reversing into bays, for example, but too low means you

n’t see behind you properly when you’re driving, particularly when the road isn’t level and you’re

ing up and down hills.

n my Ford Focus, I get them to use the door handles as a reference position for the wing mirrors, as

plained above. For the inside mirror they want to see all of the back window with a slight bias

wards their left ear. But remember, this is just a very general guideline that I use – it isn’t written

wn anywhere that you have to use it.

ow much of the car should I see in the passenger mirror?

most none of it – just the same as with the one on your side.

though there is no cardinal rule that says they have to be set in a precise way, common sense dictates

at the mirrors are there so that you can see what’s going on around you – not so you can stare at thede of your car. Therefore, you want to adjust them so that you can’t see much of the car at all, and not

o much sky or road.

an I re-adjust my mirrors for particular manoeuvres?

s. My personal opinion is that you should avoid doing it when it isn’t really necessary – you don’t

ed to do it for reversing around a corner, for example, although I know some instructors teach

ethods where you do. My own pupils only adjust it for the parallel park, and that’s because I have a

ethod which accurately positions the car relative to the kerb. For normal observations, they don’t

ally need to be moved.

an I re-adjust my mirrors if I’m on my Part 2 (driving instructor) test?

s. Same caveat as above, though.

an I ask the examiner to adjust my mirror for me?

you only have manually-adjustable mirrors, yes. The examiner will not refuse this request. The

aminers’ SOP (DT1) says:

Would I fail if I touched (clipped) someone’s wing mirror?

you mean clipping it with your wing mirror (or any other part of your car), almost certainly, yes!



ou could fail just for being too close to someone’s wing mirror, so clipping it would be even worse.

ke most things you can never be 100% certain that it would result in a fail – there might be

tenuating circumstances – but in all normal cases it would mean that you were passing too closely,

d that has its own box on the DL25 Marking Sheet. You’d get a serious or a dangerous fault for it

pending on the actual situation.

clipped someone’s mirror. Does it make me a bad driver?

nly if you keep doing it. Most people have done it at one time or another, but they learn from their

istakes.

you actually break someone’s mirror, my advice is to let them know.

Who are you to tell people how to set their mirrors?

s, that question has been asked in those aggressive terms on more than one occasion. I also

member seeing a moronic comment from an alleged driving instructor on a forum demanding “who

e you to tell people how to set their mirrors” in response to another ADI criticising how a newly-

quired pupil had allegedly been told to do it by their previous instructor. This kind of tit-for-tat

bbish is common in this industry, I’m afraid.

he short answer is that if someone hasn’t done it before, they need guidance on the best way from

meone who knows. If your instructor isn’t helping you with stuff like this it is probably because he ore doesn’t know how to deal with your problem, and you might want to begin considering what else

ey might not know.

What am I checking for when I use the mirrors?

nything or anyone that you might hit or inconvenience if you move off. And the mirrors are only part

it – you also need to check your blind spots, which are not covered by the mirrors.

ow should I use the mirrors?

enerally, at least in pairs. Use your own common sense.

or example, if you’re parked on the left hand side of the road and want to move off, you would

pically check your inside mirror, offside (right hand, or wing) mirror, and right shoulder blind spot to

t the maximum amount of information about what is coming up behind you. However, if you were

rked on the right hand side of the road then you’d check your inside and nearside (left hand, orng) mirrors, and your left shoulder blind spot.

either of the above examples, if you’d seen pedestrians, children, people getting into cars in

iveways, or anything else that could be relevant, then you may well decide to check your other mirror

http://www.diaryofanadi.co.uk/?p=2752



d blind spot as well.

o I need to check them in any particular order?

ot really, but checking the inside, wing, and blind spot in that order makes the most sense in most

ses. If a car is coming up from behind on a straight road it will initially be visible in the inside mirror.

it gets closer it will appear in both the inside and offside mirrors, then move to only the offside

irror. Finally, it will only be visible in your blind spot until it passes you.

owever, if you know there is a hazard of some sort behind you – cyclists or pedestrians, for example

look in the mirror most likely to tell you where it is and what it’s doing.

emember that it is your responsibility to check properly, so use the appropriate mirrors, check the

propriate blind spots, and even turn around and physically look in the appropriate direction if

cessary. In extreme cases it may even be prudent to stop and get out of the car. For example, what if

u see a small child on a bike, or even a dog, which then disappears from view as you’re about to movef? Where are they? This is especially relevant if you are doing a reversing manoeuvre of some sort.

failed my test for observation when moving off, but I did look over my shoulder

he examiner is watching you to make sure you take effective observations before moving off (and

other circumstances). Looking isn’t enough. You have to actually see, too. That’s what is meant by

ffective”.

hink about it. Looking in two mirrors and over your shoulder involves three head movements, but you

uld do this with your eyes closed and not see anything at all. The problem is that when people don’t

preciate why they’re looking or what they’re looking for, they won’t do it properly. In that case they

ay as well have their eyes shut for all the good their “checks” do.

have lost count of the times my pupils have “looked all round” on lessons and not seen the car or lorry

ming straight towards them. The chances are that something similar to this is what happened on

ur test. Or perhaps the examiner wasn’t happy that you’d have seen something if it was coming

ven if it wasn’t on your test) because you didn’t look properly.

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Wing Mirror Position | Diary Of An ADI