Control apparatus for two section, glare shield mirror

Claim 1

A glare shield type reflecting mirror control apparatus of a vehicle for controlling glare shield of a reflecting mirror which has first and second electro-optic elements respectively on upper half and lower half portions of a reflecting mirror layer, the transmittance of light of said first and second electro-optic elements being varied in accordance with an applied voltage, said glare shield type reflecting mirror control apparatus comprising: incident light detecting means for detecting light incident on said reflecting mirror from behind said vehicle; first determining means for determining whether the incident light detected by said incident light detecting means is light corresponding to the direct sunlight or not; second determining means for determining whether the incident light detected by said incident light detecting means is light stronger than light corresponding to light of a headlight of a following vehicle or not; day and night determining means for determining the day or the night; first control means, upon determination of said first determining means that the incident light is the light corresponding to the direct sunlight, for applying a voltage to at least said first electro-optic element to cause the upper half portion of said reflecting mirror to become a glare shield condition; and second control means, upon determination by said second determination means that the incident light is the light stronger than the light corresponding to the light of the headlight of the following vehicle and upon determination by said day and night determining means that it is the nighttime, for applying the voltage to only said second electro-optic element of said first and second electro-optic elements to cause the lower half portion of said reflecting mirror to become the glare shield condition.