Simplifying the mystery of when to use your mirrors!

Learning to use your mirrors properly is much more important than you realise.

When you're learning to drive one of the most important factors is how, when and how consistent you are when you're using your mirrors. It is one of the biggest areas of focus when it comes to driving safety and has a much bigger impact on your driving than you might realise.

Back when I was taught how to drive the advice I was given was to check the mirrors every 6-8 seconds and as a result the consistency will be there but you will also form an essential habit. As a rule it works and before you know it you'll be performing checks automatically without thinking about it at all.

There is another basic train of thinking. Look at it like this. If you are going to any of the following:

• Use the steering wheel to change the cars direction

• Use the brake pedal

• Use the accelerator pedal

• Use the clutch pedal

THEN CHECK YOUR MIRROR(S) BEFORE AND AFTER.

For a bit of perspective let look at this in a 30 minute window, a kind of average journey time as an example.

If you were to work by the first rule of 6-8 seconds and say we take a 7 second period between mirror checks, you would

check those mirrors 257 times!

And that doesn't factor in Junctions, Traffic Lights, Manoeuvring and any number of other scenarios that you might encounter.

Don't underestimate using your mirrors.