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Terry Harper · February 16th 05, 07:49 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 19:23:10 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:

It is, however, about 5' "tall", which means that visibility out of
the rear is pretty poor. A decent driver, however, can adapt to this
by looking before they prepare to reverse (getting out if necessary)
or by the use of the side mirrors[1]. Yes, you have a blind spot, but
you do in a high-backed sports car as well.
snip
[1] Some drivers, for some reason, shy away from these. I commented
to a (somewhat younger than I) friend who had recently passed his test
that I tended to reverse-park the Agila by dropping the left-hand
electric mirror down so I could see the rear wheel and the kerb - and
he called that cheating! I'd call it making use of the vehicle's
features.

For anyone who has to drive a large vehicle, the ability to see where
the rear wheels are is an important part of reversing. You usually
cannot see out any other way, so use of the mirrors is the only
option. My first vehicle, back in 1956, was a GPO telephone van, with
miniscule rear windows, and the only way to reverse was using the
exterior mirror. It only had one, on the driver's side, but the
experience was a lesson well learnt.

My wife has a Suzuki Wagon R, which I drive a lot. It's the older
version with the large mirrors, and you can have those set to be able
to see the rear wheels all the time, as well as the road behind you.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org