Research reveals that the average woman looks into a mirror every 25 minutes which is almost three quarters of a million times in a lifetime and men aren’t far behind on the vanity scale.
According to new research out today by Sheilas’ Wheels, that offers car insurance for women, the average adult manages to pause in front of a mirror 27 times a day. Women alone manage to get 38 look-ins a day, a total of 721,240 across an average lifetime, which is buoyed up by the fact they are more likely to carry a mirror around with them at all times.
But motorists then add to this with more than half of drivers admitting that they check themselves in their car mirrors in general more than 30 times in a 15 minute journey and 11 per cent do so more than 50 times a day while in their car - even though this is potentially dangerous, even when a vehicle is stationary.
It’s the misuse of the rear view mirror in the car that’s the greatest cause for concern as not every glance is purely for driving reasons, as a quarter of all women (25 per cent) admit they have put on make up while behind the wheel and 44 per cent of men have used a mirror to check out a female driver in the car behind.
More worryingly, two per cent of men have shaved in the car and seven per cent have squeezed their spots in the rearview mirror - and it's not just men as six per cent of women have done the same.
Overall, nearly a third (32 per cent) of drivers have checked their appearance in a car mirror with those in the north west being the vainest on the road, as two fifths (40 per cent) admit to having done so.
Furthermore, two thirds of drivers think using a car's mirrors for anything other than motoring reasons is as grave an offence as using a mobile while behind the wheel. Yet some may need to revise their own knowledge of the Highway Code, as the research also revealed that one in ten (10 per cent) did not know the classic advice of "mirror, signal, manoeuvre."