If your agency buys a new car, truck, bus, school bus, or multipurpose passenger vehicle – anything with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 10,000 pounds or less – after May 1, it’ll come with a rearview video system (RVS) properly placed and angled to show the driver what’s right behind the rear bumper. But if you tweak that vehicle in any way, replace the pickup bed with a service body, for example, you’ll have to reposition the backup camera. Where should it go?
New language in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) 571.111: Rear Visibility is designed to answer that question. In 2007, the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act required the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) to expand field of view beyond what drivers see with their mirrors. The goal isn’t to provide a 360-degree view, but to eliminate blind zones (not “spots”) on utility vehicles, vans, and pick-up trucks. These three vehicle types injure and kill more people every year than cars.
The law applies only to vehicles manufactured after May 1, 2018. It also doesn’t apply to vehicles with GVWR of more than 10,000 pounds, although public agencies have been equipping them for years: street sweepers, refuse trucks, pothole patchers, bucket trucks, wheel loaders, motor graders, dump trucks – the entire panoply of heavier vehicles that comprise public fleets – and, in particular, salt trucks.
“Drivers complained of other drivers riding their tail during snow operations,” says Eric Deike, public works director for the City of Hagerstown, Md. “The cameras let them see salt output and help when backing out of a dead end or into our garage at the end of a shift. We tried wireless cameras at first, but the trucks shook too much and the signal was lost. The cameras are a temporary setup for winter only, hardwired to a monitor in the cab. Works pretty well.”
Hagerstown also installed cameras on the city’s two bucket trucks, which Deike says greatly help with backing and maneuvering in traffic. “Those cameras were an off the shelf item and have worked pretty well.”
Parsing the devilish details
While retrofitting isn’t required, many public agencies have been adding back-up cameras to existing smaller vehicles. For risk-management purposes, it never hurts to document they meet federal field-of-view regulations. That’s easier said than done, however. Section 14 of FMVSS 571.111 (S14 to S14.2) outlines a test procedure so torturous even upfitters need help interpreting it. The process involves seven cylinders, each 0.8 meters high and 0.3 meters in diameter with contrasting-color horizontal or vertical stripes, placed along the perimeter of a 10-foot-by-20-foot rectangle. The goal, according to Government Fleet magazine’s October 2017 issue, is for the driver to see on the camera’s monitor the five cylinders furthest from the vehicle and at least 6 inches by 6 inches of the two cylinders closest to the back bumper.
“NHTSA wants the camera to be able to see out and up to a certain level,” says Mike Kastner, managing director of NTEA/the Association for the Work Truck Industry in Farmington Hills, Mich. Since last year, the organization has sold several hundred field-of-view test kits that include a 22-foot-by-12-foot tarp, 60 yards of tape, and a manual that explains what to do with it all (item #2297; members, $499; non-members, $649).
Eugene (Ore.) Water & Electric Board Fleet Services Manager Gary Lentsch, a NAFA Fleet Management Association certified automotive fleet manager (CAFM), bought one. “Our thought was that if we’re putting cameras on anyway, we might as well make sure they conform to an established standard and that the driver has optimum visibility,” he told Government Fleet.
Because NTEA’s test kit doesn’t include the seven cylinders, he paid about $125 to have a PVC pipe vendor cut some pipe to size. His team’s findings demonstrate why pick-up trucks, vans, and utility vehicles cause the most backup incidents: It’s very, very difficult to see what’s in the sweet spot at the rear bumper. Their tests revealed many of the utility’s vehicles need cameras that provide a 170-degree view, which were hard to find. At that time, most cameras ranged from 130 degrees to 150 degrees.
“Since then, a few more vendors have called and said they’re coming out with a camera with a wide-angle view to meet what we’re looking for,” Lentsch says. “We’ve not tried any yet.” His team adjusted camera location and angle on a couple dozen vehicles to improve visibility, then used a smartphone to photograph the monitor’s screen and filed the image in case they have to prove conformance.
RVS manufacturers are responsible for certifying their product meets hardware and electronics performance requirements for response time, linger time, deactivation, default view, and durability. However, don’t just take their word for it. Request documentation. Similarly, ask your dealer or servicer for a statement of compliance/conformance that confirms the camera’s placement and angle provides the proper field of view for that particular vehicle.
Lentsch thinks the investment in the test kit is worth it, as is the hassle of doing the test. “We install new cameras or adjust existing ones more than you’d think,” he says. “It only takes a few minutes to set up the field to do this, so why not know you did it right.”
How necessary are they?
An RVS activates when a driver shifts a vehicle into reverse and shows, on the dashboard or in the rearview mirror, an image of the 10-foot-by-20-foot area right behind the vehicle. That’s certainly helpful, but drivers shouldn’t abandon using their mirrors. In fact, some people find them counterintuitive.
Dan Williams, CAFM, spent almost two decades managing a regulated utility fleet before going to work for the City of Kansas City, Mo. Like many supervisors, he’s noticed some drivers have difficulty processing the camera monitor’s opposite-facing image and flip their hand/eye response. [Editor’s note: I’m one of them.] “These are the people who would benefit most from this technology but can’t because they turn around to back up, presumably to make their sensory input match hand movements,” he says.
Operating conditions are another factor that could limit system effectiveness. “Between snow and asphalt, I’m not sure where there would be a good spot to mount one that would work for more than a day or two without being covered in some substance or knocked off,” says West Jordan City, Utah, Fleet Manager Ben Roueche. Lentsch suggests putting a guard over the camera as protection.
Does this mean the technology is more flash than substance as a verifiable safety device?
Not necessarily.
“We’re considering retrofitting various unit classes but prefer systems supplied by OEMs at time of purchase and where suitable,” says Ed Cass, fleet operations manager for the Town of Oakville in Canada. That country’s conformance requirement doesn’t begin until 2019. “Costs aren’t unreasonable and it seems a prudence. Trust helps.”
“I can’t imagine what I’d feel like if one of our vehicles backed over someone’s kid, knowing that we had to knowledge and tools to possibly prevent it,” says Lentsch. “You wouldn’t drive your vehicle with the headlights out of adjustment, so why would you have a backup camera out of adjustment? Your article may save someone’s life.”