Angle each wing mirror outward until the side of your own car just disappears from view — that is the SAE method, and it all but closes the blind spot on both sides. Most drivers are taught to keep a sliver of their own car in the mirror instead, which leaves the wing mirrors showing much the same road as the rear-view mirror. The fix takes ten seconds and costs nothing.
Why do most drivers have blind spots?
Because their mirrors overlap. The standard advice — “you should see a sliver of your own car in each side mirror” — creates massive overlap between your rearview mirror and your wing mirrors. All three mirrors are showing you roughly the same thing.
Here is what each mirror actually sees in the standard setup:
- Rearview mirror: the road directly behind you
- Left wing mirror: mostly the same stretch of road your rearview already covers, plus a sliver of your own car
- Right wing mirror: the right lane — but with so much overlap that a car can hide in the gap
The consequence: a vehicle approaching in the adjacent lane disappears from your rearview, fails to appear in your wing mirror, and sits squarely in your blind spot right as you signal.
What is the SAE mirror method?
It is a way of angling the wing mirrors further outward, published in a 1995 SAE International paper by George Platzer, which showed that three mirrors set this way can cover the zones beside and behind the car without the usual gaps. You trade the reassurance of seeing your own bodywork for full coverage of the lanes beside you.
Here is how to set it. Lean your head against the driver’s window and adjust the right-hand mirror outward until the side of your car is only just out of frame. Then lean the same distance toward the centre console and do the same for the left mirror. Sit upright. The sides of your car should now be invisible in both wing mirrors.
Why does the SAE method feel wrong at first?
Because you can no longer see your own car. The first time you drive with mirrors set this way, it feels wrong. You glance at the wing mirror and see a lane. Not your car. Not a familiar reference point. Just tarmac.
Most people switch back within a day because they do not trust what they are seeing. The fix takes five minutes. Park on a quiet road with a friend in a second car. Set the mirrors using the lean method. Have your friend drive slowly through your blind spots while you watch them move smoothly from rear-view to wing mirror to peripheral vision. That exercise builds more trust than any amount of reading.
What do you lose with the SAE method?
Only the view of your own rear doors. The only thing sacrificed is the view of your own rear doors. You were never going to hit your own car. What you gain is continuous coverage: a vehicle leaving your rearview mirror now appears immediately in your wing mirror, with no gap. You see the lane, and everything in it.
Why isn’t it more widely taught?
Probably because the visible-car method is easy to check. A learner and an instructor can both confirm in a glance that a sliver of the car is showing; nobody can see from the passenger seat whether the mirrors have been angled to close the blind spot. The method that is easy to demonstrate is the one that stuck.
When doesn’t the SAE method work?
When the rear-view mirror cannot see out of the back. The SAE method relies on your rearview mirror covering the centre-rear zone and your wing mirrors covering the side-rear zones, with no gaps. That geometry breaks if the boot is loaded to the roof, if you are towing a trailer or caravan, or in any car where the rear-view mirror is blocked. In those cases, conventional mirror settings — with some overlap — give you the best available coverage.
Do you still need a shoulder check?
Yes. Mirrors set correctly still leave one blind spot: the zone directly beside your rear passenger door, roughly level with your shoulder. No mirror catches it. The SAE method shrinks it dramatically, but the shoulder check — that quick glance before you steer — remains the final safeguard. The difference is that with properly angled mirrors, your shoulder check confirms what you already know, rather than revealing surprises. On Surrey’s tighter roads around Kingston upon Thames, where a cyclist can appear from a side road in a heartbeat, that extra half-second of awareness matters.
If your car could use more than a mirror adjustment, book through Mobile Mint Car Care.