Originally Posted by Terex

I know you guys like your mirrors, but… It's highly unlikely you'l get hit by a car coming up from behind, or realistically be able to get out of the way if one veers into you. It's highly likely that you will experience dozens of potentially life threatening objects in front of you every time your ride. Having ridden most of my miles in rural NJ, the roads are usually so narrow and twisty that looking behind you is pretty pointless.

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

… In June of 2012 I was hit from behind (while wearing a mirror) and was in the hospital for six weeks. I did not see it coming in my mirror, perhaps because I was on a wide, lightly traveled, low-speed-limit residential road...

I have confidently resumed my commuting because, even as before the acccident, I am much more secure with my rearview mirrors.

The chance that an upcoming car is coming to hit you, as you approach an obstacle is much much less than the chance that you are approaching an obstacle, and have no idea what’s coming up from behind, especially on a heavily traveled, perhaps narrow road. Without a mirror one can:

1. depend their hearing, which may not well discriminate the position of an upcoming car with a lot of background noise, and still keep their eye on the obstacle
   
   
2. turn your head as quickly as possible to minimize losing sight of the obstacle, and hope your quick glance with mostly peripheral vision adequately assesses your behind, and does not cause you to drift leftwards as you rotate your torso

With a mirror one can listen, glance behind without rotation, keep control of the forward direction, keep the head looking forward toward the obstacle, and only require a shift of the eyes.

Furthermore, I'm usually monitoring traffic behind me to minimize surprises.

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

…The additional right hand mirror affords a pretty good rearward view, but is particularly useful:

…On a curved road to the right…