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elusive "upper rear tail light" where to get?


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An ophthalmologist explained the detriment of hanging anything from the rear view mirror of a car to me about 40 years ago  -  I've never forgotten what he told me

 

He said that although we humans *think* we 'see' with our eyes, we actually don't.  Our eyes just collect data which is sent to the brain where it's assembled into an image.  Like most other bodily functions, the brain controls everything  -  It tells your eyes where it needs input from and moves them (and your head) accordingly,  constantly assembling new images to consider all the while

 

When you hang something from a mirror, that creates constant movement as the object swings around as the car moves and that movement is very distracting to the brain . . . . so it pretty much just ignores it  -  Any movement in that area is written off as being the object hanging from the mirror, so no need to pay any attention to it.  That effectively creates a dead spot in your vision encompassing the area just below your mirror  -  Any movement near that area gets overlooked, so if a car, a child, a deer or anything else which is moving in that general area and would otherwise alert your brain that there's something over there that needs to be checked out, you may very well end up not seeing it, for all intents and purposes  -  Even if the movement there does eventually register in your brain as something other than what's hanging from the mirror and alert you that you might be about to hit something, that alert is much delayed and the inevitable collision probably still happens  -  You didn't 'see' it soon enough to do anything about it

 

My daughter has hit 2 or 3 deer over the years  -  To hear her, they hit her as they 'just came out of nowhere' and she didn't have time to take evasive action . . . . but she's still pretty sure the crap hanging from her mirror had nothing to do with it!

 

You may have noticed that about a quarter to a third of all vehicles have something hanging from the mirror.  Oughta be a law against it, IMO.  Some gals (mostly) like to drive with a little multi-faceted crystal ball hanging there, reflecting light all around the interior of the car!  I honestly don't see how they're even able to keep it on the road with all that distraction . . . . and beware, many of them can't!

 

Don 

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5 hours ago, Beta Don said:

 Oughta be a law against it, IMO.  

 

Don 

 

I haven't researched it here in Texas (I have a cargo van with no windows or center mirror, so what do I really care, lol), but I know Illinois has a law that nothing - air fresheners included - is allowed to hang from the center mirror. But, that's just an add-on ticket up there, not a cause to pull over the driver in the first place. I'd bet that most states have a similar statute - and rarely ever enforced, as Eddy Kilowatt said. 

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