Interpretation ID: 571.108 School Bus Focused Illuminated Projection Lanyon NCC-230125-001
March 21, 2023
Mr. Bobby Lanyon
Access Innovations Global LP dba AIG Safety
PO Box 511
Orefield, PA 18069
Dear Mr. Lanyon,
This letter responds to your request that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) allow, but not mandate, your company’s product, the “Focused Illuminated Projection” system, for application on school buses under Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 131, School bus pedestrian safety devices. Your request was referred to my office to determine whether the feature you describe is allowed under existing FMVSSs. While you asked for an amendment to FMVSS No. 131, we believe it is appropriate to consider whether your product would be permitted as an auxiliary lighting device under FMVSS No. 108, Lamps, reflective devices, and associated equipment. Based on the information you have provided, our answer is that your device is permissible under FMVSS No. 108 for the reasons explained below.
By way of background, NHTSA does not provide approvals of motor vehicles or motor vehicle equipment. Instead, manufacturers are required to self-certify that their products conform to all applicable FMVSSs that are in effect on the date of manufacture before the products can be offered for sale. Manufacturers must also ensure their products are free of safety-related defects. This letter represents NHTSA’s opinion concerning whether your product, as you describe it, would be permitted under FMVSS No. 108. It is not an approval of your product, nor is it an endorsement of the safety claims made in your interpretation request.
Under FMVSS No. 108 S6.2.1, non-required additional lamps are prohibited on new
vehicles if they impair the effectiveness of lighting devices required by FMVSS No. 108. The question as to whether an auxiliary lamp impairs required lighting equipment is usually decided on a case-by-case basis.1 Based on the information you have provided, we have concluded that the “Focused Illuminated Projection” system will not impair the effectiveness of a school bus’s required lighting.
1 Letter to Michael Haas (May 6, 2019), available at https://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/571.108%20--%20HDC%20Supplemental%20Turning%20Lamps%20--%20HAAS%20--%2015-4155.htm.
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Mr. Bobby Lanyon
Description of the “Focused Illuminated Projection” system
Your letter describes the system as a “low technology, high reliability solution designed and implemented to re-enforce the explicit and implied scope (S1) and Purpose (S2) of Section 571.131 by statically illuminating the 10ft stopping threshold” onto the roadway in front of and behind a school bus during a school bus stop. AIG also describes it as creating an “illuminated crosswalk” for students.
The system consists of red LED lights mounted onto the front and rear of the bus adjacent to or below the signal warning lamps above the front windshield or rear window. It projects a red line onto the road 10 feet in front of and behind the bus. It is controlled by the “same electrical relay that illuminates” the lamps on the stop signal arm. We assume, for the purposes of this interpretation, that this device only activates when the vehicle is stopped and is in a loading/unloading state, when the stop arm is also activated or the door is open.
Discussion
FMVSS No. 108 requires that school buses be equipped with a system of two red signal lamps, and optionally two amber signal lamps, installed at both the top front and top rear. These lamps must flash alternately at a rate of 60-120 cycles per minute. We have previously stated that auxiliary lamps can impair the effectiveness of required lighting in four ways: brightness, activation pattern, color, and mounting location.2
Brightness will cause impairment if the additional lamp is so bright as to obscure or distract from required lighting. Based on the photographs provided in your submission, it does not appear that your device would cause impairment of a school bus’s required lighting due to brightness. Additionally, because your device is a projection system, brightness concerns, particularly at a distance, are mitigated by the ability to apply a shade to the device to ensure that only the projected image is visible.
Regarding activation pattern, FMVSS No. 108 requires all auxiliary lamps, with the exception of certain specified types of lamps such as turn signal lamps, to be steady burning.3 You state that the “Focused Illuminated Projection” is “statically illuminating”
2 Letter to Paul Schaye (September 9, 2019), available at https://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/571.108%20--%20AMA%20--%20Schaye--front%20color%20changing%20light.htm.
3 Prior to 2007, FMVSS No. 108 included an explicit requirement that, with the exception of certain types of required lamps (e.g., turn signal lamps), all lamps on a vehicle, including auxiliary lamps, must be steady burning. In 2007, NHTSA implemented an administrative reorganization of FMVSS No. 108 which, among other things, converted the blanket steady burning requirement (and its exceptions) into individual activation requirements for each type of required lamp. See 72 FR 68234 (Dec. 4, 2007). Although the reorganized rule no longer includes a blanket steady burning requirement, NHTSA stated in the preamble to the reorganized rule that its rewrite of FMVSS No. 108 is considered administrative in nature because the standard’s existing requirements and obligations are not being increased, decreased, or substantively modified. Moreover, NHTSA continues to believe that flashing auxiliary lamps would impair the effectiveness of required lamps by distracting or confusing other road users. See Id., at FN 7.
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Mr. Bobby Lanyon
the stopping threshold in front of and behind the bus, which we understand to mean that the device is steady burning. Therefore, your device’s activation pattern is unlikely to distract other road users from the required lighting and will not impair the effectiveness of the vehicle’s required lighting due to activation pattern.
Regarding color, NHTSA has stated that impairment concerns prohibit the use of lamps of colors that are likely to cause confusion to other road users.4 For example, NHTSA has previously stated that red lamps placed on the front of non-school-bus vehicles impair the effectiveness of lighting required under FMVSS No. 108 because drivers understand red to mean stop and those lamps can be confused with stop lamps.5 However, this is not necessarily the case with school buses because they are required to have red signal warning lamps on the front of their cabs. Here, the question is whether your device would impair a school bus’s required lighting, in particular the red signal warning lamps that are required on the front and rear of school buses. The purpose of the signal warning lamp is to “identify a vehicle as a school bus and to inform other users of the highway that such vehicle is stopped on the highway to take on or discharge school children.”6 Your device is designed to increase the conspicuity of a stopped school bus and benefit that purpose. It supplements the signal warning lamp by activating only while the required red signal lamp is activated, which occurs when the bus is in a stopped and loading/unloading state. This matches the purpose of the red signal lighting. In addition, nearby drivers are likely to understand the red indicator to mean “stop” and “do not enter the projected zone,” which may further the purpose of the required signal lamps. Therefore, it is our opinion that it is unlikely to impair the effectiveness of lamps required by FMVSS No. 108 due to color.
Regarding mounting location, lamps impair the effectiveness of required lighting under FMVSS No. 108 if they are mounted in locations that cause them to interfere with the ability of a vehicle’s required lamps to achieve their purpose.7 Generally, we have found that this requires auxiliary lighting to be mounted “far enough away” from other lamps that it does not impair their effectiveness.8 Although your device is mounted adjacent to or just below the signal warning lamps, your device’s mounting location is not likely to impair the signal warning lamps because your device is a projection system. At distance, especially if there is a shade on the device, other road users are unlikely to observe any interference with the signal lamp.
Previously, we have found that certain auxiliary stop signal lamps on school buses were likely to impair the effectiveness of required lighting under FMVSS No. 108. For example, we found the ALLSTOP system, a red flashing light affixed to the roof of a
4 Letter to Paul Schaye (September 9, 2019), available at https://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/571.108%20--%20AMA%20--%20Schaye--front%20color%20changing%20light.htm.
5 Id.
6 49 CFR 571.108 S4.
7 Letter to Paul Schaye (September 9, 2019), available at https://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/571.108%20--%20AMA%20--%20Schaye--front%20color%20changing%20light.htm.
8 See, e.g., Letter to Redacted (January 21, 2004), available at
https://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/GF007705.html.
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Mr. Bobby Lanyon
school bus that only activated when the school bus door was open, “would divert a
driver’s attention from the required signal lamps and cause confusion with respect to their meaning….”9 Your device is distinguishable from the ALLSTOP and is unlikely to cause confusion with the signal warning lamp for two reasons: first, it is steady burning, and second, the meaning of your device’s signal appears to be unambiguous. The ALLSTOP had a much higher likelihood of distracting or confusing drivers because it was a flashing and rotating device like a police light. NHTSA has found impairment where it is likely that an auxiliary or alternative lighting scheme could confuse drivers due to an ambiguous meaning.10 For example, NHTSA recently stated that the HELP system, which flashed the turn signal lamps to create an additional hazard warning system, had an ambiguous meaning if used in any situation other than while parked.11 Your device, however, as two static projected red lines on the road, plainly indicates “do not enter.” Therefore, it is our opinion that your device is unlikely to impair the effectiveness of the required lighting under FMVSS No. 108 and is permissible under that standard.
With respect to the aftermarket, 49 U.S.C. 30122 has the effect of requiring that the installation of any aftermarket vehicle lamp, by a manufacturer, distributor, dealer, or motor vehicle repair business, must not “make inoperative” any element of design or device installed on a vehicle in accordance with FMVSS No. 108. As with original equipment, we regard the addition of a projection lamp that is used in the way we understand your “Focused Illuminated Projection” system to operate not to make inoperative a vehicle’s original required lighting equipment.
If you have further questions, please contact Eli Wachtel of my staff at (202) 366-2992.
Sincerely,
John Donaldson
Acting Chief Counsel
9 Letter to J. Adam Krugh (May 22, 2003), available at https://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/002769drn.html.
10 Letter to Steven T. Powers (January 19, 2021), available at https://isearch.nhtsa.gov/files/571.108--HELP%20System--Powers.htm.
11 Id.
Dated: 3/21/23
Ref: Standard No. 131