The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today published a proposed rule to improve rear visibility by drivers, including those who operate small school buses and school vans, by seeking to require the use of back-up cameras or other technology.

NHTSA seeks to revise FMVSS 111 "to expand the required field of view to enable the driver of a motor vehicle to detect areas behind the motor vehicle" and attempts to tackle the issue of pedestrian safety while vehicles back up. The NPRM also includes passenger cars, low-speed vehicles and multi-purpose passenger vehicles that weigh less than 10,000 pounds GVWR. Trailers and motorcycles are exempted.

Public comments on the NPRM are being accepted through Feb. 7, 2011.

According to the National School Bus Loading & Unloading Survey for the 2008-2009 school year, the most recent data available, no child fatalities have occurred at the rear or front of Type A school buses since 2005. Still, NHTSA estimates that on average 292 fatalities and 18,000 injuries occur as the result of back-over crashes. NHTSA also says children and people over 70 are also far more likely than other groups to be victims of back-over crashes. Children who are shorter in stature can be especially difficult for drivers to see using "direct vision or existing mirrors."

For the past several years Rosco Mirrors has provided the school bus industry with school bus backup camera systems that include fixed 5-inch and 7-inch LCD camera systems to show the area behind the school bus. The company also offers similar solutions for transit buses, sanitation vehicles, cargo trucks, RVs and work trucks.

While not prevalent in school bus applications, the use of back-up cameras are already widespread in the trucking and delivery industries, said Peter Plate, director of sales and marketing at Rosco in Jamaica, N.Y. The company displayed its "Bus with No Mirrors" at the NAPT trade show several years ago to demonstrate how its back-up cameras could show the driver all areas around the bus without using traditional cross-over and rear-view mirrors.

"We may find that this rule will help speed up the convergence of mirror and camera technologies and integrated products to create an even safer environment around the school bus," he added.

The NPRM was required by passage of the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007. The law also seeks federal motor vehicle safety standards for automatic reverse features on power windows if the window's upward path is obstructed and brake transmission shift interlocks that prevents a vehicle being shifted out of park unless the brake pedal is depressed.