Dang just heard the SO wipe off another driver's side mirror on the garage door

[HereSince1628]

I think this is the 5th time in 8 years...

Crikey.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. I can solve that..

fill the garage with stuff so they have to park in the driveway.

[LiberalEsto]

2. Time to widen the garage doors?

It could also be a peripheral vision issue. I'm nearsighted, can't wear contacts, and can't see to the sides with my eyeglasses. I bump into curbs a lot.

[HereSince1628]

4. No, it's more her reliance on patterned behavior in which she doesn't look left

I'm pretty convinced she has a some variation of autism that severely affects her ability to deal with space. She would say she can't process space well...which includes things like finding 'buttons' and menu items on computer toolbars when she takes computer use classes. But she gets very emotional about talking about these things and I'm poor with emotions...so we usually don't.

At any rate, she compensates for her spatial processing limitations by tending to do things pretty much exactly the same way over and over. If she's interrupted in these patterns she tends to become completely disoriented and distressed...like when she hits the garage...at which point she sometimes can't figure out how to steer or shift gears to drive forward or backward.

It seems to me that one of the patterns that she seems to have retained from bicycle riding and transferred to auto driving is that when she drives slowly she rocks the steering wheel back and forth as if she's trying to maintain balancing. Another pattern is that when she backs the car she always looking over her right shoulder (the house is on that side...she really doesn't want to hit the house) and doesn't check to see what's happening up front or on the sides of the car.

Consequently, sooner or later, she doesn't notice when her steering wheel swinging moves the mirror too close to the garage door frame. I've become good at replacing the mirror, I'm really pretty poor at dealing with the emotional crises.
Oh well...


Thanks for the reply. It helped me find catharsis to try to explain it.

[fleur-de-lisa]

7. You seem like a very patient and understanding person . . .

she's lucky to have you.

[HereSince1628]

10. Actually,

I'm often a basket case.

[TwilightGardener]

8. Maybe she just shouldn't drive? I'm not being snarky, but

someone who gets her gears mixed up and can't handle the car well is going to plow into somebody in a parking lot someday.

[Lars39]

3. Some mirrors can fold in close.

Might be some kind of visual aid that could be put up in garage to help.

[HereSince1628]

5. Something like that might be good...but

I wonder if then it might be the fender on the garage door?

[Lars39]

12. True, getting awfully close, one way or another.

Foam bumpers on side of doors...split some pool noodles or something...something bright.

[HereSince1628]

13. If she drove a Harley this wouldn't be a problem

but I don't think I can get her to ride one in the winter!

[Lars39]

17. lol

No, I can understand that.

[OxQQme]

6. Quick fix

Go to your local hardware store and buy a can of Great Stuff foam sealer ( I used 'Big Gap Sealer).
Have the SO, or somebody, hold the mirror assembly FIRMLY in place and 'spritz' some of that in from the inside.
Hold the pressure on the mirror until the foam expands and sets up (about 3 minutes). Voila!
Mine stays on even through those car wash machines that have the rotary brushes that scrub the sides.
A new mirror for my car was close to $200. Can of foam = $5

[HereSince1628]

9. That's a cool idea...unfortunately the mirror proper turned to tiny pieces

We actually have a very cheap 'spare' mirror assembly from some knock-off parts place. I'll put that on when she gets back from work this afternoon. The matching replacement will probably be at the dealership Monday afternoon.

[nolabear]

11. Objects beside mirror are closer than they appear.

I empathize. I haven't swiped a mirror but know many who have, and I have skinned the side of the car. You lose track JUST for a second and SCREEEEEEE!!!

[enlightenment]

14. Assuming this is a one car garage,

why not paint a line down your driveway? Instead of turning her head to the right, which is apparently causing her to turn the steering wheel to the right, she could use the rear view mirror and keep the line centered as she backs out. If you hang a yellow tennis ball from a string inside the garage, centered for the middle of the windshield, it would help keep the car centered for the line on the driveway . . .

Not a good explanation, but my dad did that for my mom (they had a two car garage, but similar issue) and she quit raking the door on the way out.

[HereSince1628]

15. Ok...thanks for your suggestions...a couple of thoughts...

When I first met her many years ago this problem with backing up was obvious, I suggested many of these things...and she didn't like me 'criticizing'. It's the sort of touchy subject that sometimes is just not worth pushing very hard.

The problem isn't that she doesn't pull in and have proper position in the garage to start. She goes forward perfectly well. As for lining up with a hanging tennis ball when she backs up...well, it sounds fine in theory, but, frankly, she's always looking in the other direction. She finds turning her head to look at whats happening with the front of the car confusing while she backs up. I know...I know...see last sentence above the previous break...

She claims that she lines up the UNC sticker on her back window with the side of the driveway across the street and that this 'always' gets her out ok. Well it really doesn't.

Although she only breaks a mirror once every 18 months, she's often off the drive on the neighbor's grass on the leftside. That maneuver requires her going up over a 3 inch curb (which I would think she would feel happening) and then dropping about 9 inches with associated banging and scraping noises to the left side undercarriage...that happens a couple of times a week--unless there is deep snow which pushes the left side of the car, and keeps her in the drive... sometimes...

Little story....the day after I came home from 3x bypass surgery she drove the car over that curb and dropped the car off that side of the drive getting it stuck behind the curb in ~8 inches of fresh soft snow. She did, in fact, blame me for that at the time. She also expected ME (just one day out of the hospital) to PUSH her free BECAUSE she was going to the drug store to get gauze bandages FOR ME so I could change the dressing on my oozing incision. When I said she gets disoriented and emotionally distressed after these events that's sort of what I meant...end of story.

She really never uses mirrors when backing up although her car has 3 nice mirrors. She says she can't make sense of them, and frankly after many years of this, I believe her. She has been driving for more than 40 years...I don't really expect a change in driving behavior on her own driveway. I do expect to have these DANGED experience until we no longer are at this address.

[enlightenment]

16. Sounds a lot like my mom, though she

wasn't quite as aggressive at assigning blame to my dad. She did blame everything else, though!

The funny thing was that she was an excellent driver - once she got out of the garage. I always thought it had something to do with her peripheral vision, and as she aged, perhaps because she had some tracking problems.

The tennis ball thing was designed to help her park in exactly the same spot every time she pulled in - which lined the car up with the painted line on the driveway. She only looked at it going forward. Going backward, she only looked in the rearview mirror at the painted line (which was centered in the mirror because of the tennis ball . . . crimey, I'm not making sense - wish I could draw this . . .)

o --- |__| --------->

tennis ball - car centered on tennis ball - tennis ball centered on painted line . . . (meh. need a pencil!)

It took her awhile to figure out that she didn't need to look behind her and she didn't need to turn the steering wheel any further than necessary to keep the painted line centered in the mirror, but she did learn. Stopped smacking the side of the car on the garage (but did continue to drive over the curb because she'd get cocky once she made it out of the garage).

I appreciate your frustration - I can still see my dad shaking his head and rolling his eyes every time we heard the screech of metal on the garage door frame and the clunk/ripping noise when she went over the curb.

Hang in there.