good motoring
Do use rearview mirrors
H. Kishie Singh

ONE of the most important fitments in your car that the manufacturer provides is an outside rear view mirror. One is good; two are better than one. Three are like having eyes in the back of your head, even though you might be wearing a turban! The inside rear view mirror has been a standard fitment for years. Even in the 1930s, when cars carried two spare wheels mounted on the front mudguards, it was normal to see a rear view mirror mounted on both spare wheels. As early as then, drivers and manufacturers had realised the value of being able to see what was happening behind them.

Fast cars have been on our roads for almost two decades. Slowly but surely our road infrastructure is improving; 120-140 kmph is not an unusual speed on NH1, even though it is well over the legal speed limit. This also means that these drivers are overtaking a lot of cars on the road.

If you are in the centre lane, and you should be, and if it is a three-lane highway, the extreme left-hand lane is for slow-moving traffic. The centre lane is for the law-abiding drivers, who will observe the speed limit. The extreme right-hand lane is for overtaking only. Once you have overtaken a vehicle, sometimes it may be two or three vehicles in one swift move, move back into the centre lane. There is bound to be someone faster than you.

If you are in the centre lane and have to move into the overtaking lane, it is mandatory that you check your rear view mirror. Checking the inside rear view mirror is not enough. The person overtaking could be close enough so that he is in the blind spot created by the ‘C’ pillar. This is where the right outside rear view mirror (ORVM) proves to be invaluable. It gives a clear view of the overtaking lane. If a faster car is coming up on your right and you move into his path, and this will happen if you do not check the right ORVM, a collision is imminent.

With the number of cars on the road these days, a multiple car collision could be the result. At a 100 plus kmph, a multiple car collision will spell disaster.

When Volvo buses were seen on our roads for the first time, they had the rear view mirror fitted on a boom that extended about a meter ahead of the front windscreen. This housed more than one mirror. It showed the entire sides, left and right, plus the road below the front bumper, in case a dog was sleeping, or children were playing dangerously close to the bus.

In India ORVMs are largely ignored. It is common to see them closed, and this in high-end expensive cars. One would like to think that a person driving a car worth Rs 10 to Rs 15 lakh, with electronically-operated ORVMs, would have the good sense to know the value of ORVMs and use them. Not so! Section 138 of the Motor Vehicles Act (failure to have mandatory accessories) makes it an offence not to have ORVMs, or keeping them closed.

Truckers and bus drivers, who spend hours on the road most of their lives and concentrate on looking straight ahead, end up with a condition known as tunnel vision, a condition in which one cannot see properly things that are not straight ahead in their line of vision. They lack peripheral vision. It is for this reason that ORVMs are mandatory and an invaluable aid to safe driving.

A car driver, without the aid of ORVMs, will force this condition on himself. Just about every car today comes factory-fitted with ORVMs. Use them and make your life safer.

Happy motoring