On 6/8/2012 8:43 AM, HeyBub wrote:
....

Of course it is illegal for the mirror to be installed by a car
manufacturer.

I blame the mirror lobby.

Nonsense...it's in the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Admin)
regulations owing to the classic distortion problem--at one time the
wide-angle mirrors that are now permissible/used on the right-hand side
of passenger vehicles (w/ the mandatory annotation as noted in the
article) were allowed but it was discovered that the depth compression
they caused was causing many to underestimate the distance to a
car/object and so they were limited to the non-driver's side and the
warning required. I don't recall just when and didn't look it up but it
would likely have been in the 60s or so if my memory is roughly
chronologically correct--it seems to me it was the '58 Chevy 1/2T I
remember that had the wide-angle mirror on both sides.

At some point, NHTSA will evaluate the new technology and likely approve
a set of standards for apparent distortion and update the requirements
if it seems to really be workable solution.

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