Mirrorless trucks gain heavy favor in NHTSA proposal

“Multiplying that improvement over many trucks in year-over-year operation, the fuel efficiency benefits of CMS would provide enormous financial returns to trucking fleets, not to mention the significant corresponding environmental benefits of reduced criteria pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions.”

The American Trucking Associations, which also supports allowing mirrors to be replaced by cameras, pointed out savings in mirror maintenance costs. “At the current average, shop repair costs are $100-$150 per hour,” ATA commented. “Using these figures, a [commercial motor vehicle] owner may spend $100-$200 twice per year repairing mirror issues (not including the price of parts).”

While it didn’t oppose modifying current regulations to allow for cameras, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) asked NHTSA to consider the effects that a rule change could have on pre-trip, safety and roadside inspection procedures.

“Each of these functions ensure a vehicle is maintained and operated as intended and ensure appropriate visibility for a human driver,” AAMVA pointed out. “But the existence of a CMS may not be visibly apparent to vehicle inspectors and evaluating the functionality of the system may be much more difficult to assess without direct, firsthand knowledge of CMS systems that may be widely disparate in application.”

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) was also concerned about roadside inspections on trucks with cameras instead of mirrors, pointing out that inspectors regularly use a truck’s side mirrors to communicate visually with drivers during their inspections.

“For example, inspectors need to communicate with a driver while checking lighting requirements and make sure that a driver knows when the inspector begins to crawl under a truck as part of a roadside inspection,” CVSA commented. “In addition, the inspector can see whether the driver has remained in the driver’s seat during an inspection, a safety concern for inspectors.”

While NHTSA moves through the rule-change process, two companies that manufacture CMS have been granted temporary exemptions from the current rules by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

In 2018, FMCSA granted Stoneridge Inc. a five-year exemption that allows the company to install its MirrorEye camera system on trucks in lieu of rearview mirrors. Earlier this week the agency granted a similar exemption to Vision Systems North America Inc. to replace rearview mirrors on trucks with its SmartVision high-definition CMS.