It's not about you seeing the car, but the car seeing you. Consider, for example, cars turning right across a crosswalk while a cyclist continues straight throu

It's not about you seeing the car, but the car seeing you. Consider, for example, cars turning right across a crosswalk while a cyclist continues straight through the intersection on the crosswalk. The driver's visual scan will catch pedestrians but not you, since you are nowhere near the intersection at the time they look but in front of them by the time they start accelerating. If you were in the street, you would appear in the right side mirror.