I posted this in the Clydesdales/Athenas area this morning.
I use a helmet mounted mirror with a truly tiny, but extremely effective mirror that gives me a very adequate rear view. See pics below.
I'm a zealous mirror user and for a good reason; using a mirror has kept me from getting killed twice. On two occasions, trucks, coming from behind, have gone far out of their way to hit me, but they couldn't because I saw them coming and took evasive action.
On one occasion, a dump truck was coming from behind and I saw, in my mirror, that he was on a collision course with me and closing fast. I was on a straight two lane road that had no paved shoulder, but had a 5' gravel area that I could escape to. I went about 3' off into the gravel and the truck passed me with his right side tires across the white line. There were no other cars within sight. It was about 2:00pm and there was unlimited visibility. There was no reason for this truck to head off the road at the very same time that he was passing me.
Years later there was a similar situation. About 2:00pm, straight two lane road, but this road had a 3' paved shoulder, where I was riding. I heard a semi truck coming from behind, looked in my mirror and saw that he was way too close for comfort. I kept looking and knew that this guy was going to hit me if I didn't do something fast. I went off of the shoulder and about 3' into the grass and the semi passed me with his right side wheels IN THE GRASS. There was no other traffic and no reason for him to move off the side of the road at the very same time that he was passing me.
Wouldn't you use a mirror, too, if you had experiences like this? Fortunately for me, I began to use a mirror BEFORE these two close calls.
Here's what I'm using (see pics below); it started as a Third Eye mirror, but I modified it. The reason for the modification was that the standard mirror (a little bigger than a quarter) blocked too much of the road ahead, obscuring traffic and things like dogs running from the left side of the road toward me. There is a nickel behind the mirror in the second pic to give you and idea of size.
Although the mirror portion seems small, it gives plenty of room for me to see all that I need to see without obscuring forward vision.
