Here’s an interesting aside, as we meander gently through the French countryside: while buses in France must bear stickers on the outside to highlight their blind spot, or “angle mort”, our electric bus has an active warning turning assistant on board that uses cameras at the rear to monitor all the bus’s blind spots and warn the driver using different colours and sounds if there is a risk of collision.
The digital and camera-based OptiView system that replaces mirrors, significantly reducing the blind spot with wide-angle and normal cameras, also helps us out during these stages. Even at night or in bad weather, the system has clear advantages over a traditional mirror, because it brightens or dims dark or blurred areas. As part of the “road safety education” campaign, MAN travels to schools and enables children to experience just how big the blind spots are so that they can understand better. The blind spot of a bus is big enough to hide almost an entire school class.