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You're very astute in noting that the "OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR" warning appears only on the passenger side mirror. Objects on the driver's side are, apparently, exactly as close as they appear. Why this strange discrepancy? According to The Straight Dope, it's because the two mirrors are made differently. The driver's side window is a flat mirror, like the kind you find in your bathroom. The passenger side window, however, has a convex or "wide angle" surface. In other words, wide angle mirrors bulge outwards. This unusual shape allows the driver to see more, helping to compensate for the "blind
spot" we all learned to fear in driver's ed. In order to display more objects (such as passing cars), the wide angle mirror shrinks them. This tends to play tricks on our depth perception, since we associate smaller objects with greater distance. Hence the warning.
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