How often should you check your mirrors while driving?

Regularly checking your mirrors while driving, specifically every 10-15 seconds, is essential for maintaining awareness of your surroundings and ensuring safe driving conditions. This practice allows drivers to monitor the positions and movements of other vehicles, pedestrians, and potential hazards that may not be directly in their view. By doing so frequently, you can react promptly to changing situations, such as adjusting your speed or position or preparing for lane changes and turns. This timely awareness contributes to safer driving and can help prevent accidents by ensuring that drivers are always informed about what is happening around them.

In contrast, checking mirrors every few minutes is too infrequent to provide timely awareness of changes in traffic conditions. Limiting mirror checks only to lane changes or exiting the freeway does not promote the level of situational awareness needed to navigate complex driving environments safely, as conditions can change rapidly.