Patent ID: 7429115

Claim:
A mirror system for a vehicle comprising: a viewing device located in a mirror housing mounted on the vehicle wherein a first section of the mirror housing contains a viewing surface in an interior of the vehicle and a second section of the mirror housing optically open to an outside of the vehicle; said viewing surface formed by one or more substantially right angle triangular prisms having two sides of substantially equal length and two vertices of substantially equal angles; said one or more prisms mounted in the first section of the mirror housing so that one of the two sides of equal length of each of said one or more prisms is positioned in an opening facing the interior of the vehicle to provide the viewing surface; a second one of the sides of equal length is facing to an exterior of the vehicle; said second section of the mirror housing sized and shaped to contain operative optical elements comprising one or more reflective means mounted in the second section of the mirror housing at an angle to the second one of the sides of equal length of the one or more prisms in the first section of the mirror housing so that when the driver looks through the viewing surface of the one of more prisms the driver sees objects to the side of the vehicle in a first part of said viewing surface and objects to a rear of the vehicle in a second part of said viewing surface, wherein the reflective means mounted in the second section of the mirror housing has a first flat mirror positioned in the second section of the mirror housing in a manner to permit the driver to look through a first section of the viewing surface of the prism and see whether an object is in blind spot area along the side of the vehicle and second flat mirror to mounted in the second section of the mirror housing in a manner to permit the driver to look through the second part viewing surface of one or more prisms and see to the rear and along the side of the vehicle, the first flat mirror being disposed at an angle relative to the second flat mirror so that the first flat mirror is non-parallel to the second flat mirror, the first flat mirror and the second flat mirror facing the rear of the vehicle.