Are fender mirrors pointless?

I love my fender mirrors.. but people like to back into my right one pretty frequently.

I'm sure I could manage fine without them, but I appreciate the extra views/angles.

 

When the rt side fender mirror is properly adjusted you should be able to quickly glance to the tandems on a 53 ft box when makin a sharp rt hand turn on to a two-lane city street. (so as not to hit poles and curbs.)

 

They are a great tool. I first saw them in application when I was stationed in Okinawa Japan 1987. The gunnery sergeant in charge of the Motor Pool had them installed on all the hummers, and 5tons. Over there we drove on the left side of the road. Those mirrors really reduced accidents. At that time if you have an accident (or crash they call them today) it was automatically the American's fault. Tradition held that you'd have to go to the Japanese house 3 times and offer restitution. Like if you ran over a chicken, you'd offer to replace the chicken but the native would say, '10 chickens', then you say OK they say 15 chickens then the final offer would be 20 chickens because that one bird would have had 5 babies and and their babies etc.

Long story short the mirrors work great if you know how to use them. Making turns, you watch your tandems in the door mounted mirrors then as you 'lose' the view there, pick it back up in the hood mounted mirrors and complete your turn without running up on curbs, dragging down telephone poles or Swift's favorite pasttime, trying to re-grade the roadway with a 5 ton boulder up under the trailer.
Blind side backing, use the hood mirror to line up your tandem tires with the painted line on the ground, then do some short pull ups and get it smooth up in there like a pro.

 

I like my fender mirrors, they give me a quick look down both sides of the rig from bumper to bumper. When you're running down the road looking ahead (as you should allways be doing) you can keep track of what is beside you with out having to turn your head all the time.

 

In Southern states they say you have a wreck with a vehicle . An accident is what you have in your pants when you have a wreck .

 

That's just retarded. I had to drive a truck home without any spot mirrors on it and I felt like I was driving blindfolded. It REALLY sucked. I'm not sure what the fender mirrors do that the spot mirrors under the westcoasts don't.

Now THERE's something that IMO is useless. Never did see the point behind those goofy little windows.

My flags are on the corners of the trailer since that's what is wide. The purpose of them is that the eye picks up movement so a fluttering flag will be noticed by oncoming traffic more readily than a fixed indicator. I'm not even sure if running them on the front of the truck full-fills the legal requirement as they would draw attention to the corner of the truck rather than the wide corner of the front of the trailer. Regarding the fender mirrors, I've never driven a truck with them so I have no experience from which to draw a conclusion. Perhaps it's just a case of "ignorance is bliss" but I have no problem seeing what I need to see with the mirrors that I have and don't see the point to them however, I think Kittyfoot hit the nail on the head when he said "depends on the conditions".

 

I have a right hood mirror and only use it when pulling out of angled parking spaces. The way a rest area space is configured you would have to get out of the drivers seat and look out the passenger window to see if anyone is coming.

 

Hahaha!!!! I noticed that the other day! If I get bored I just wave and start talking to it. Almost like having someone else in the conversation!

But seriously...I do use them. Check it when getting back in the right hand lane, use it to see things coming when I am not angled straight at a turn, to try to see the idiot tailgater behind me,. They can be useful if angled right and you get used to using them.

 

40 years ago the BIGGEST spot mirror you could buy was 4"... I'd say , maybe, 40% of trucks had 'em at the time. They were expensive ($3.00!) so my boss simply didn't spend the money.

At the time 90% of all LTL and a big chunk of TL freight was hauled by thousands of companies with union represented drivers. Those spot mirrors were actually bargained into some union contracts as was air conditioning, power steering, AM radios, CB's and maybe even truck heaters (at one time). If it didn't come from the factory it wasn't on the truck unless the driver's demanded it and the union was able to negotiate such things into the labor contract.

Fender mirrors didn't come about until the late 70's IIRC and very few drivers had 'em until the 80's. We mostly drove cabovers at the time. When conventional's came into wide use (after 55' length laws were dropped) O/O's bought those fender mirrors as an accessory pieces at chrome shops and truck stops. Big fleets finally adopted them after being pushed by insurance companies...

Go test your driving skills sometime by pulling all those spot mirrors off your truck, tape up the peep window and install one 4" RH spot mirror... I guarantee you will KNOW what's going on alongside your truck....

 

If ya got 'em and want to use 'em....use 'em.
If ya don't got 'em...ya can't use 'em.

(Yogi Berraisms?)