Side view mirrors

[Dallas]

Dallas,
     I am anxiously awaiting your exercise video.  I am not adverse to some movement to scan the sides.  Also, someone here suggested I get better convex mirrors.  The ones that are currently mounted above the regular mirrors are about 5 inch round and are highly convex.  I find the area covered to be too large and the items in it to be too small.  A less convex mirror may be really useful.

why would yo need an exercise video?

You are piloting a 40' long, 8' wide vehicle that is unlike anything you ever drove before.

If you like sitting still, try this.. put on a pair of shorts, look down at your legs. See any purple veins? See any raised ridges that look like a can full of blue or purple worms?

That is from you sitting on your behind and not allowing blood flow to the lower body.

No one said that you had to be a jumping jack, but you really do need to move around while you are driving.

Where to do you think blood clots originate? How large a blood clot will it take to make you critically dead?

Good luck, get bigger mirrors, don't adjust them correctly, drive, hit someone, sit on your big behind and die.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound too hateful, but I have watched 80 year old women that work on farms and in cafes that have legs as nice as the hottest 20 yr old you ever saw.
I've also seen 30 year olds die from blood clots.

I'm not a fitness nut by any means, (I'm as fat as a well fed Vietnamese Potbellied Pig), but when you push a button, I'll respond.

Too many people are enamored of sitting on their bottoms and letting the world work for them.

We don't want to lose any of our friends, of which, even though I haven't met you in person, consider you one.

Bottom line, anything you can do to get better vision of your driving is great, but get off your asss and don't expect some piece of machinery to do it for you.

Dallas

[RJ]

Dallas,  I am anxiously awaiting your exercise video. 

why would yo need an exercise video?

Dallas -

I think, if you re-read your initial comment about moving around in the seat burning calories and Mama liking you better for it, Lin was responding to that in a somewhat "adult tongue-in-cheek" manner - an attempt at humor that fell slightly flat, altho I got a chuckle out of it.


Lin -

If I guessed right and Dallas missed the joke, let me be the first to apologize for him. . . he sometimes misses my oddball humor, too!

Anyway, try adjusting your mirrors the way I and Buswarrior suggested, then take the coach for a ride - an not just around the block!  Drive it 50 miles or so, making lots of RH and LH turns, tweaking the initial adjustment slightly as necessary, then let us know the difference, if any, from before.

FWIW & HTH. . .

[Lin]

Russ,
     My attempts at humor are often not appreciated, but I keep trying anyway.  I think that my sense of humor was partially responsible for my failure as a high school teacher some years back.  School administrators generally lack a sense of humor.  I thought that when I told an unruly class that just because their parents slept together did not make them special, I was offering a valid fact in a humorous way.  The officials thought that I was not sensitive the their self esteem.  By the way, it was a horrible job and I did much better at my next one which was teaching murderers and other felons in a state prison.  They were actually much better students. Anyway, I will try the adjustment methods given.  I will also get better convex mirrors.

Dallas,
     Sorry if my comment offended you.  I thought that, given your note about losing weight by shifting in the driver's seat,  that you did not mind joking around.  For the record, I do move around quite a bit to extend the utility of my side view mirrors,  however feel that my starting/neutral point should be better than it is.  Also, although I do not mind you telling me to get off my fat @$#, I am not really all that fat.  Most would probably tell you that my fat head is more of a problem.  "After all," they would say, "you did buy a bus."

[Dallas]

I apologize, Lin,

sometimes my warped sense of humor is plumb curlyqued and I can't see the obvious.

And please believe me....my @$# is fat enough for any 3 of us! And generally needs a good kicking at times

[Lin]

Yo! It's all good, man.

One question about the mirror adjustment sequence.  In the first step, one is supposed to line up the lower RH corner of the mirror with the lower RH corner of the windshield by moving the arm.  How should the mirror be oriented when you start this?  It would be different if the mirror was parallel to the driver or at a right angle, or any angle for that matter.

[tekebird]

hope this might show

[buswarrior]

Hello Lin.

Focus on the end result. You want to see down the side and beside you.

You do whatever it is you have to do to see what you gotta see.

The tricks Russ and I suggested are to help you do that, they are not the ends, they are somewhat the means, so the mirror isn't hiding behind the windshield pillar.

It isn't about adjusting the mirrors to some rules, or following some gurus, it is about seeing, so you don't hit things.

I'll try to wade through the snow on the weekend and take some pictures.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[Lin]

Thanks,
   Pictures won't be necessary.  I'll use the method described and adapt.  I think I have generally either moved the arm too far out or gone the other extreme.  Your rule of thumb method should get me to get it right.

[belfert]

I don't know about the rest of you, but in my bus I can't really see anything out the curb side without using the mirrors.  The passenger windows are so far above the driver that the driver can't see out those windows.  If I'm at an intersection where the streets meet at a severe angle I actually have to remove the seatbelt and stand up to be sure there are no cars coming.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong.  I don't know.  My mirrors are very well adjusted and have both flat glass and convex glass so I just use the mirrors any time I switch lanes or otherwise need the mirrors.

[buswarrior]

No shoulder checking in a bus or truck, belfert.

You're doing fine. Use the mirrors.

[chargePlus]

Too many people are enamored of sitting on their bottoms and letting the world work for them.

That appears to be the "new" American way. Why do anything for yourself when you can get someone to do it for you for cheap, or even free.

- John