When you are towing, your caravan makes it impossible to use your car's rear view mirror, therefore you will need some towing mirrors. Your mirrors for towing must not project more than 200mm beyond the widest part of your car or caravan. Although for any cars sold after 26th January 2007 this is now 250mm.

As we have received so many questions regarding the law and towing mirrors, we decided to ask towing mirror manufacturer Milenco. This is what they had to say:

"To qualify the Milenco position based on our comprehensive examination of all the regulations and information provided to Milenco by experts in this field at the Department of Transport, we state: -

i. From the 12th of December 2005 you should use towing mirrors approved to directives 71/127 or 2003/97.

ii. For cars sold after 26th of January 2007 you should only use towing mirrors approved to 2003/97.

Since the publication of the Article, neither we, nor any of the technical experts within the caravan industry, that we know, can to date find any technical errors in the article.

In all probability, if you own old mirrors that you bought ten years ago or indeed twenty years ago, such as Raydyot, Summit, Smut, Milenco etc. they will be e – marked, perfectly legal and conform to the previous directive 71/127. This directive actually dates back to 1971.

If you own mirrors that you bought a month ago, there is the distinct possibility that these mirrors may not be e – marked, and that they do not conform to the old directive or any accepted standard. This is because they do not have safety glass, nor have been tested or manufactured by a factory with an approved quality system. The primary danger of using these mirrors, many of which are actually very poor quality Chinese copies of the above mirrors is that, you could be showered by glass shards in the event of an accident."

It is also a legal requirement that any caravan mirror must be type approved and e-marked. Your caravan dealer or caravan accessory shop should be able to help you to purchase the correct towing mirrors.

There are many different types of mirrors and different ways of fixing them to your car. Again, your caravan accessory shop should be able to help you and will probably allow you to try them on your car before you buy them.

You can buy caravan mirrors with clamps to fix them on to your car mirrors, stretchy rubber bands which fit around the back of your car mirror, or even a mirror with a suction pad (although we're not sure how long this would stay on for at high speeds!).

You can buy either a flat glass mirror or a convex mirror. The convex mirror will obviously provide a wider field of vision but it is down to personal preference as to which you buy.

Remember, try the mirrors on your car before you buy them to check they fit as not all mirrors fit every car. Most caravan accessory shops would prefer you to get the right mirrors the first time, rather than you having to take some back for an exchange.

We use flat glass mirrors which fix on to our car mirrors using the stretchy rubber bands, which we cross over diagonally at the back to ensure a snug fit. We have always used these mirrors and find them extremely easy to fit and have very good vision of behind the car and caravan.

Please contact us if you have some Towing Mirrors which you would like to recommend to others.

Look around at the mirrors other caravanners use and ask their advice. Caravanners are very friendly people and love to be asked!