The purpose of this thesis work was to carry out initial studies on Scania’s possibility to have plastic rearview mirror glasses as that for example may reduce costs and problems for Scania’s customers and enable another design of the mirror assembly. It was performed by studying the legislative and Scania demands regarding rearview mirrors to write a test program, find and order plastic mirrors, and then perform the tests and evaluate the mirrors to see if they seem good enough for Scania’s trucks. A Scania technical regulation for rearview mirror glass was also written.   The tested mirrors were a Scania glass mirror as reference, a PC mirror from Sabic, a PC and a PMMA mirror from Specchidea, a mirror from SMR automotive, an ABS mirror from Ficocipa/Renault, an ABS mirror from Ford and a PC plastic from Bayer and they were tested for scratch resistance, temperature variations, impact resistance, corrosion and chemical resistance in that order. If a sample did not pass a certain test, it was not subjected to the next one.   Of all samples it was only the SMR mirror and the reference glass mirror that passed the first test (scratch resistance). The others became too scratched and were not tested further. The SMR and the glass mirror also withstood all the following tests very good, the SMR mirror was the best one of the tested mirrors. Probably the SMR mirror was the best one because many of the other mirrors did not seem to have been made for outdoor conditions and because it seemed to be the most modern mirror with a good abrasion resistant coating.   It was concluded that there is a future for plastic mirror glasses, that it would be interesting to do more tests on the mirrors, for example a UV test and a distortion test, and to test more mirrors as a new generation of plastic mirror glass seem to be underway. It would also be interesting to know how much cheaper and lighter the whole mirror assembly can become by changing to plastic mirror glass, which weighs 68% less than a glass mirror.

Analysis of the field of view from commercial vehicles is very important issue. Because driver’s field of view is main part of active safety. When some traffic accident happens, it must be investigated. The question is, was the driver able to see that object? It’s very different and important if driver didn’t see that object or couldn’t see it. In the thesis are described norms which contains information about driver’s position on driving seat and position his eyes, information about differences between binocular and ambinocular field of view. In the thesis are regulations about rearview and rearview mirrors. The thesis contains elements of vehicle equipment for improvement field of view. The thesis is about possibilities, how measure the field of view from commercial vehicles. The thesis contains few methods for measurements driver’s field of view and theirs results. Objective of the thesis is to take experiences from measured tests and use them for invention and description own method of measuring driver’s field of view from commercial vehicles, which leads to improvement. Then use the method for measurements and comparations few commercial vehicles. Which are dimensionally more bigger and have bigger blind spots than personal vehicles.

The diploma thesis deals with the issue of controlling the situation behind the vehicle. The first part of the thesis summarizes the knowledge about drivers, their reaction time and vehicle response, the construction characteristics of vehicles designed to control what is happening behind the vehicle, and the possibilities of measuring the duration of glances in the form of eye tracking. The analytical part contains an analysis of the duration of glances in the rear view mirrors depending on the mirror, the situation and also the driving manoeuvre during the day time. The data was obtained from video recordings of 12 drivers in normal traffic conditions. The duration of the saccades and fixations of glances was evaluated depending on the mirror used, in individual situations and also for selected driving manoeuvres. The conclusion of the analytical part is devoted to the comparison of the duration of glances during selected driving manoeuvres when exposed to stimuli as well as to the comparison of the differences in individual age groups of tested drivers.