FMCSA has granted the request of Stoneridge, Inc. for an exemption to allow motor carriers to operate CMVs with the company’s MirrorEye Camera Monitor System installed as an alternative to the two rear-vision mirrors required by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSR). The agency determined that granting the exemption is likely to achieve a level of safety equivalent to or greater than the level of safety provided by the regulation. FMCSA said the MirrorEye provides an enhanced field of vision compared to mirrors and provides other benefits over mirrors, such as color night vision, low light sensitivity, and light and glare reduction. The system also incorporates self-cleaning and defrosting features and is a fail-safe system due to independent processing of multiple camera images.
Although the exemption was approved by Martinez on December 21, the effective date will be the date of publication in the Federal Register. Due to the government shutdown, only a very limited number of items are being published. Therefore, it is unclear when the exemption will formally take effect. For the FMCSA notice of the granted exemption, visit https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FMCSA-2018-0141-0036 <https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FMCSA-2018-0141-0036>.
