Pretty much every car sold in the US has its side mirrors mounted on the doors. In Japan, most taxis (and some privately owned vehicles) have the side mirrors mounted on the front fenders. It seems like this would do a better job of minimizing or eliminating the blind spot that results in so many American drivers attempting to change lanes without realizing there’s a car or motorcycle next to them.
So why aren’t fender-mounted side mirrors more popular on private vehicles in Japan, and why don’t they exist at all in the US? Is there a regulation that prohibits them?
From a practical standpoint, hood-mounted mirrors wouldn’t be as convenient to adjust. Of course, these days mirrors are all powered, but back in the day it we all had to reach out and move the mirror by hand.
Throw in a bit of inertia and you get mirrors on the doors.
Besides, the visible size of the mirror to the driver would be substantially smaller–you wouldn’t see as much in it, even if it were able to reflect things in a better way.
This writer agrees that the greater distance between driver and mirror meaningfully decreases useful visibility:
I didn’t find anything to suggest that fender mounted mirrors are illegal anywhere in the US, which surprised me, because there’s a variety of legislation intended to protect pedestrians who roll up onto the hood when struck by a car (cf. Virginia’s detailed specifications on size and shape of scoops). I would have assumed that a pointy bit of metal sticking up and out would be barred as an injury risk, but I didn’t see any such rules.
Edit: ninja’d on the Jalopnik article by three minutes.
If fender mirrors are so bad, then why do they persist on Japanese taxis? This article claims that when door-mounted mirrors were legalized in Japan, private owners preferred them basically because they looked cool, not because they performed better:
Once the market was liberalized, Japanese consumers overwhelmingly choose cars with side mirrors. “This was a time when many Japanese aspired to foreign-made products,” according to Osuga. “Customers thought cars looked snazzier, and more like foreign cars, when they came with door mirrors instead of fender mirrors.” Even when fender mirrors were offered as an option, so few customers opted for them that manufacturers eventually phased them out completely.
The article claims that Japanese taxi drivers, who are arguably less concerned about looking cool, still prefer fender mirrors because they are better:
The one exception was taxi drivers, who had such a strong preference for fender mirrors that cars built for the taxi market continue to come with fender mirrors as standard equipment. “The main reason taxi drivers prefer fender mirrors is that they provide better visibility,” Osuga explained. “There is less of a blind spot so it’s easier to confirm what is happening at the rear and side of the car, especially on the driver’s side.”
I’m not convinced that they are superior for blind spot prevention.
There are ways of positioning door-mounted mirrors that greatly reduce blind spots, if that is what you want. For some reason folks who use this alternate mirrors-out approach are quite passionate about convincing everyone else that they are doing it wrong.
Go ahead and use whatever works for you–I’ll stick with my more traditional position.
In the goode olde days, side mirrors were mounted on the door itself - the holes drilled in the door were a prime spot for rust. The little triangle at the front of the door window was for a vent window. The first car I saw with the mirror mounted into the triangle corner of the front door window was my 1985 Honda Civic. It was the usual example of (i presume) clever Japanese engineering. The mirror simply bolted into place where there could be a plain triangle. My el cheapo Civic came with just the driver side mirror, and a year later I bought the passenger side mirror and replaced the blank piece myself, with a screwdriver.
As I understand, it can now be simple dealer prep. The car ships with blanks, and the mirrors in packages on the seat. The dealer installs them. One less odd protrusion to be damaged during shipping. No risk of rusting. Easily replaced if broken. (IIRC the mirror on my Civic was plain black, so no need to stock multiple different colours at the time.)
The same ccould be said of antennas, back when cars had them. Originally they were mounted on the front fender (sometimes rear) and were a classic point for rust to start. (My Civic had the antenna in the front door pillar. Once again, it came with a tiny cover plate no antenna, that I unscrewed and inserted the antenna, then fishing the wire from under the dash. It had the full wiring harness for a radio, just connect radio, antenna, and door speakers) Perhaps the more populated areas of Japan don’t experience the weather extremes that can lead to excessive rusting? Maybe taxis are replaced soon enough that rusting is not an issue?
That’s my thought as well. Better visibility at close range perhaps? Also, side view mirrors are perhaps the single biggest impediments to aerodynamic performance of anything on a vehicle that doesn’t need air slamming into it (such as the radiator or engine intakes). I suspect the drag from them being up on stalks above the hood is noticeably worse than when they’re tucked into hood/door/windshield transition area. This wouldn’t be much of a factor for a city taxi or a delivery truck, but for most other vehicles it would be.
In the majority of cars, if there’s a blind spot, it’s not because of the car’s design, but because the driver has adjusted the mirrors incorrectly, as I explained, with authoritative cites, in 2017.
Years ago someone on this board posted a bland statement that, if your mirrors are adjusted properly there is no blind spot. Despite years of both driving and violent head turning experience I decided to try his/her advice. I set the mirrors as recommended and drove home largely in the middle lane of a 3 lane road. Just as advertised, every car that passed me or I passed was always visible in one or both mirrors or alongside me. This has been true in very car I have driven since.
Simple inertia explains a lot of things. And human beings are very good at finding ways to justify their choices or biases, especially when it means not changing from the status quo.
It is possible there is some objective, measurable benefit to their preference, but one that is not based on “we like it this way” has yet to present itself.
Anecdotal, but I knew at least one Japanese person who claimed milk that did not come in bottles (or at minimum paper cartons) was just wrong. After decades of using half or full gallon plastic jugs, I just chalked it up to a cultural preference.
When I first started driving in the late 50s, side mirrors (if fitted) were usually attached to the front wing (fender) and were pretty useless because they were tiny and tended to vibrate.
A decade or so later, they were still an optional extra but usually attached to the door, often only on the driver’s door. Since 2010, all cars have to have an external mirror on both sides (visible to the driver, when in his driving position, through a side window or through the portion of the windscreen which is swept by the windscreen wiper) and an internal mirror unless there is no view to the rear (like in a van)
My transfer to Japan back in 1982 was real eye-opening. Rural Hiroshima (anything outside of Tokyo was the boondocks) with little to no English language signs, traffic on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, shifting my Civic with my left hand (thankfully the pedals weren’t reversed - whew!). And car mirrors on the fenders.
It was explained to me as the six inch rule. The roads in Hiroshima were wide boulevards necking down to two lane bridges (urban renewal back in the 40’s). If your car was six inches ahead of the adjacent vehicle, just fire up the turn signal and take the lane. This was especially common at traffic lights. The light would go green - a brief pause as 7 taxis blitzed through the intersection - then hammer it to the next light/bridge to get ahead in traffic. A shopping commute from where I lived thru Hiroshima to the military base could take as little as two hours once I got the hang of things. Five to six hours in my timid times. Travel back in recent times and the traffic was much better with more lanes, expressways and more romaji markings for us gaijin.
A somewhat related observation I made last month when I was in China: the rearview mirrors (the ones attached to the windshield) in many of the taxis were not actually mirrors; they were live video from the rearview camera on the car. In some taxis, the feed was not even displaying; there was just some sort of text display. (I can’t read Chinese, so I had no idea what the display said.) I can’t imagine that such a setup would be legal in the US or most European countries.