Citation

Garrott WR, Mazzae EN. Proc. Int. Tech. Conf. Enhanced Safety Vehicles 2009; 2009.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, In public domain, Publisher National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety, Act of 2007 requires the National Highway Traffic, Safety Administration (NHTSA) to "initiate a rulemaking, to revise Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, 111 to expand the required field of view to enable, the driver of a motor vehicle to detect areas behind, the motor vehicle to reduce death and injury, resulting from backing incidents, particularly incidents, involving small children and disabled persons.", It goes on to state that this may be accomplished "by, the provision of additional mirrors (emphasis, added), sensors, cameras, or other technology to expand, the driver's field of view." An advanced notice, of proposed rulemaking was published on February, 27, 2009. This paper examines whether rear-mounted, convex mirrors could provide an image with sufficient, quality that may be useful in aiding drivers in, performing backing manoeuvres., There are three main configurations of rear-mounted, convex mirrors: a single "look-down" mirror, a single, corner mirror, and a pair of cross-view mirrors., NHTSA measured fields of view and image quality, of one look-down mirror and three pairs of cross-view, mirrors for passenger vehicle applications., Field of view and image quality were also estimated, for one rear convex corner mirror based on previous, research with that mirror relating to its use on medium, straight trucks. Note that this study did not, attempt to examine whether drivers will successfully, use rear-mounted convex mirrors to successfully detect, obstacles or pedestrians behind a vehicle. This, question of potential overall effectiveness of rear-mounted, convex mirrors, relative to other solutions to, expand the driver's rear field of view, will be the, subject of additional agency research., The useful fields of view (FOV) of the five rear-mounted, convex mirrors were determined. The potential, backover risk reductions were estimated for, the five mirrors studied, using only that portion of, their FOV's with an image quality rating of better, than "impossible." The estimated potential backover, risk reductions ranged from 33.4% (for the, Toyota 4Runner rear cross-view mirrors) to 2.2 %, (for the ScopeOut passenger car rear crossview, mirror). The full text of this paper may be found at: http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0558.pdf