[jambutty]

With today’s technology I would have thought that the car manufacturers would have come up with something different to a door/wing mirror.

For a start, if a roof rack is reckoned to increase fuel consumption then so do external mirrors to some degree.

Years ago when drivers did their signalling with the right hand/arm the flip up indicator was invented. If you wanted to turn right you flicked a switch and out swivelled an arm to indicate so. Or one on the left side if turning left. So why can’t some engineer do the same for external mirrors? Park the car and turn off the ignition and the mirrors retract out of harms way. Turn on the ignition and out they come. Simple. No doubt the car manufacturers would take advantage and stick an extra few hundred quid on the cost of a car.

But that would only solve the “passing cars/vandals smashing mirrors whilst parked” problem. It would not address the fuel increase problem or touching mirrors with on coming traffic whilst in motion in a tight spot.

What if there was a mirror sized LCD display on the right and left on top of dashboard in line with where the door mirrors are now, that are connected by fibre optics to two cameras at the back of the car, say as part of the rear light clusters. Of course this would mean that you would not be able to see the back of your car, which can be so useful when reversing.

But hey! What a problems for but for solving?