Road safety: mirrors, systems for indirect vision on vehicles (amend. Directive 70/156/EEC, repeal. Directive 71/127/EEC)

PURPOSE : to present a proposal for a directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the type-approval of mirrors and supplementary systems for indirect vision and of vehicles equipped with these devices and amending Directive 70/156/EEC. CONTENT : the proposal aims to improve the safety of road users by amending the construction requirements of certain components and introducing new technologies in order to increase the field of indirect vision for drivers of motor vehicles of categores M (vehicles for the carriage of passengers) and N (vehicles for the carriage of goods) and reducing the blind spots which occur in the immediate area around the vehicles. The Commission has discussed with Member States, industry and other interested parties the possibilities to reduce the risk by requiring the installation of rear-view mirrors or alternative systems with specific arrangements to reduce the blind spots around vehicles. Following general agreement in its Motor Vehicle Working Group, the Commission services established an expert ad-hoc group to improve the legal framework with regard to rear-view mirrors. The group prepared a document, which proposes significant improvements to the existing situation taking into account the technical development since the last amendment of Directive 71/127/EEC on rear-view mirrors. Although the structure of the original Directive 71/127/EEC has been maintained as much as possible the content of this directive has been altered significantly. Therefore, it is proposed to repeal Directive 71/127/EEC and its amendments and replace it by the new Directive. This is in line with the "Interinstitutional Agreement on the Common Guidelines for the Quality of drafting Community Legislation" which requires obsolete acts and provisions to be repealed. The following main modifications to Directive 71/127/EEC are foreseen: - the directive becomes mandatory for all categories of vehicle instead of being voluntary within the type-approval system for light and heavy duty commercial vehicles. This measure seeks to harmonise the requirements within the Community and to avoid divergent national solutions; - additional mirrors shall be mounted to certain vehicles (front mirrors on trucks, exterior rear mirrors on the passenger's side of passenger cars, aspherical mirrors on vehicles of categories M1 and N1) in order to increase the field of indirect vision; - certain characteristics of mirrors (e.g. curvature of the surface now 1 200mm instead of 1 800mm for main rear view mirrors) are modified according to technical progress in order to increase the field of indirect vision such as camera/monitor systems; - the provisions regarding type-approval procedures and conformity of production procedures originally covered by Directive 71/127/EEC are now taken over in Directive 70/156/EEC as last amended and therefore not anymore included in this Directive.�