Why does the passenger mirror on a car read, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear,” but not the driver’s side?
In: 6
Because the curve of the mirror on the passenger side gives you a wider field of view but makes it all of the stuff in the view smaller.
That mirror isn’t quite perfectly flat so it changes the field of view, but a side effect of that is it alters how big things look (making them smaller). If you’ve ever seen one of those big dome mirrors in a store, similar idea
The driver sits much closer to the driver’s-side mirror so there’s less need for it to be curved to give it a wider viewing angle. It’s that curve that also makes objects seem farther away. But my car has a curve on both mirrors so it does vary from car to car, and different countries will have different regulations about this too.
Passenger mirror on cars is curved to give driver a wider field of view. The trade-off for that distortion is that things look further away than they are — hence the warning reminding drivers.