Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard; Convex Cross View Mirrors on School Buses

摘要

In response to a petition for rulemaking submitted by the Blue Bird Body Company (Blue Bird), NHTSA has decided to propose amending Standard No. 111, Rearview Mirrors, with respect to the field-of-view around school buses. Specifically, the agency is proposing to rescind a provision in the Standard so that certain driving mirrors would no longer be required to provide a field-of-view of the ground forward of cylinders by the bus's rear wheels to areas directly beneath the mirror surface. The agency is concerned that the current requirement may compromise safety either by making it more difficult for the driver to use the driving mirror when the bus is in motion as the result of having a more distorted image from a more convex mirror or by reducing the driver's direct line of sight as the result of creating a larger blind spot near the bus.