Almost nobody learns how to set their car mirrors properly. The method taught in the UK driving test — angle the side mirrors so you can see the side of your own car — was quietly abandoned by SAE researchers in 1995 as the worst way to do it. The fix takes ten seconds. It costs nothing. And almost nobody knows about it.
1. Why your mirrors are set wrong
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.
2. The SAE method
In 1995, SAE International published research showing that angling side mirrors further outward — until the side of your own car just disappears from view — eliminates the blind spot on both sides. 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.
3. The five-minute trust problem
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 seamlessly from rearview to wing mirror to peripheral vision. That exercise builds more trust than any amount of reading.
4. What you lose (and why it does not matter)
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.
5. Why almost nobody teaches it
The SAE paper landed in 1995. By the late 1990s, the method had quietly vanished from most UK driving syllabuses. The likely reason is practical: an examiner can verify that a candidate checks their mirrors, but they cannot assess from the passenger seat whether those mirrors are angled to eliminate blind spots. The test shapes the teaching. The teaching settled on the visible-car method because it is demonstrable in a thirty-second glance.
6. When it will not work
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 you are driving a van with no rear window, towing a trailer, or piloting anything where the rearview mirror is useless. In those cases, conventional mirror settings — with some overlap — give you the best available coverage.
7. The shoulder check still matters
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.