The mirror I purchased off ebay is a copy of this, but optically was useless. Have you used one of these to verify that it has a proper glass flat mirror in it? More than likely, I will need to purchase online and not be able to inspect how good the mirror is.
Lol, at least no-one told me to get rid of the bar end shifters, get a new bike etc

I dont think you took in the bit where I mentioned I was a city commuter and to do left turns from the centre of the road(on less busy roads) saves a lot of time(not having to pull over to the right and walk bike across road etc). If there is no following traffic, I can safely do that, a good mirror should allow me to see if the road behind is clear(NB, Im actually in Aust - so have just reversed the directions to avoid confusion on this US based site)

Thanks for the other helmet recommendations, I havent tried them. One concern is if one glues them into place how do you do a quick adjustment to avoid intense reflections, like when the sun is directly behind you?