ANTI-GLARE VEHICULAR MIRROR

Abstract

A mirror element for a school bus is mounted to the front to provide wide angle viewing of the ground in front of and to the side of the bus. An upper portion of the mirror element which is generally dome shaped is treated to reduce glare resulting from possible sun rays reflected in the direction of the bus driver.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/757,130, filed Jan. 9, 2001, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to mirrors for school buses, trucks, vans or any vehicle and, in particular, mirrors for school buses which are mounted on the front of the buses and which are glare resistant while still providing large fields of view.

For decades, it has been known to fit school buses with mirrors mounted on the front fenders which provide very wide angle fields of view, enabling the bus drivers to carefully monitor the bus along the front and sides thereof. Providing such mirrors is necessary as a matter of the safety of our children.

Typically, such mirrors are spherical or nearly spherical in shape. Many are dome shaped, to achieve the wide field of view.

These mirrors are very well known in the art, as exemplified by the 1933 U.S. Pat. No. 1,905,623 to Deitz. Similar mirrors are also disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,436,372; 4,512,634; 5,005,963; 4,500,063; 4,938,578 and many other similar patents. The contents of the aforesaid patents are incorporated by reference herein.

While the mirrors of the prior art achieve their intended objectives of providing wide fields of view both in the horizontal and vertical (azimuth) directions, there are certain drawbacks to their use. Specifically, the inventor herein has determined that the provision of wide fields of view along the azimuth direction sometimes adversely affects the optimization of the operability of the mirror system.

Other prior art, dealing with the subject matter of vehicular mirrors and the subject of undesired light reflection, includes U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,311,253, 1,811,823; 2,514,989; 2,881,655; 3,764,201; 4,822,157; 5,589,984, as well as WO 8503136 dated July 1985 and German Patent 2148022 dated March 1973. The contents of the foregoing U.S. patents are incorporated by reference herein.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with the present invention, a portion of the mirror's surface is treated to reduce or eliminate glare. Specifically, in accordance with the present invention, the mirror's surface is notionally divided along the azimuth vertical direction into several zones. To obtain the maximal glare reduction, the top one half portion of the mirror is treated for reducing glare. Preferably, however, only the top one-third portion is so treated, in order to minimize the surface area which shows a darker or duller image due to the anti-glare treatment. Thus, an image is still visible although in a darker which reduces possibly disturbing or confusing glare.

The methods of fabricating and/or treating mirror surfaces to reduce glare are well known in the art. For example, there are non-glare coatings that can be applied to the mirror surface. Another approach is to adhere a cellophane based thin membrane shield or cover over a portion of the mirror surface. Still another approach involves a chroming process to reduce glare. That is, a chrome plating is applied on the front surface of the mirror glass.

Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of the invention which refers to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a perspective of a typical prior art wide angle spherical mirror attached to a school bus.

FIGS. 2A, 2B and 2C show front views of several spherical mirrors for school buses which have been treated to reduce glare.

FIG. 3 is a cross-section along the line 3-3 in FIG. 2A.

FIG. 4 shows a further placement of anti-glare treated areas on a oval shaped surface of a convex mirror.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

With reference to FIG. 1, a mirror element 10 is affixed to a mirror pole 12 which is in turn received in a mirror mount 14 by which the mirror 10 is thus secured to the front fender 16 of a school bus 18. The mirror element 10 is generally dome shaped (FIG. 3), but can have a variety of peripheral edge shapes, for example, circular as shown in FIG. 2A, horizontally oval as shown in FIG. 2B or vertically oval as shown in FIG. 2C. The depth of the dome relative to the base 20 (FIG. 3) of the mirror 10 can be selected to choose different angles of view, as is well known. Also, as is known in the art, the mirror element 10 can have one field of view in the horizontal direction (denoted by the arrows 22 in FIGS. 2A and 2B) and a different angle of view in the vertical direction as denoted by the arrows 24. The angle of view magnitude is determined by the radius of curvature of the mirror surface in the horizontal and vertical directions.

An occasional problem which has affected spherical mirrors of the type indicated is the possibility of reflection of the sun rays from the upper half of the mirror element as indicated by the arrows 26 and 28 in FIG. 3 when the mirror is not optimally mounted.

In accordance with the present invention, one can view the mirror element of FIGS. 2A, 2B and 2C as having a surface which extends vertically from a highest point at position 30 to a lowest point at position 32. The sun rays reflection problem is solved by treating a portion, specifically the upper portion of the mirror surface with an anti-glare material, in any of the manners well known in the art, as set forth in the summary of the invention section of the present description.

With reference to FIG. 2A, in the broadest application of the present invention, the treated surface encompasses that portion of the mirror element surface 10 which begins at the uppermost position 30 and continues to about halfway down the vertical direction, to the line which is identified by reference numeral 34. In a mirror element fabricated so that the upper one half portion of the dome surface is treated for glare, the image in that portion will be darkened because of the glare treatment. It is important not to increase the portion treated with anti-glare material beyond the bottom one half portion because the glare treatment reduces the sharpness of the image and it is important that the lower half mirror which points to the front of the bus where very young, short children may be standing is not affected.

Preferably, however, it is sufficient for reduction of the glare problem if only the top one third of the mirror surface is treated with the anti-glare material. In this preferred embodiment, only the surface above the curved line identified by reference numeral 36 (in FIG. 2A) is covered with the anti-glare material. Note that the line 36 is curved relative to the straight surface bisecting line 22. In some embodiments, the portion treated to reduce glare encompasses less than one-third of the mirror surface.

In the foregoing description, the surface of the reflecting mirror, which has been treated for reducing glare, always had a portion which bordered the peripheral circumscribing edge of the reflecting surface. The peripheral edge is the circumferential edge 50 of the reflecting surface. However, turning to FIG. 4, the invention also encompasses applying onto the surface of the reflecting mirror an island of anti-glare coating selected specifically to deal with any location on the mirror surface from which the undesired reflection may emanate. This area is shown in FIG. 4, as area 52, but that area can be in any of the other quadrants or may be larger than as shown or may straddle several quadrants. The consideration is always to ensure that the area or island that has been treated with anti glare material, is located away from the peripheral edge 50 of the reflective surface. There is a logical reason to proceed with the approach of FIG. 4. That is because the image is rather smaller near the mirror edges, and one would not want to miss the image of a child reflected near the circumferential edge 50 of the mirror surface due to dulling of the image. Also, it is perceived that one would typically not encounter undesired reflection near the edges.

Although the present invention has been described in relation to particular embodiments thereof, many other variations and modifications and other uses will become apparent to those skilled in the art. It is preferred, therefore, that the present invention be limited not by the specific disclosure herein, but only by the appended claims.

Claims

1-8. (canceled)

9. A cross-view vehicle mirror assembly, comprising:

a mirror mount mountable to a vehicle;

a mirror element connectable to said mirror mount and having a contoured outer mirror surface comprising a convex, generally dome shaped mirror surface and having an upper area and a lower area, said upper area capable of reflecting images located above said lower area, and said contoured outer mirror surface facing in a direction toward the vehicle to which said mirror element is mounted; and

an antiglare material treated on said upper area of said mirror surface to reduce glare from sun rays emanating at least from a direction in front of a driver of the vehicle from the front or sides of the vehicle while darkening an image reflected thereby, and wherein said lower area of said mirror element is free of antiglare material.

10. The mirror assembly of claim 9, wherein said mirror element is directly connectable to said mirror mount.

11. The mirror assembly of claim 9, wherein said upper area of said mirror surface on which said antiglare material is treated comprises about one-third of said mirror surface.

12. The mirror assembly of claim 9, wherein said upper area of said mirror surface on which said antiglare material is treated comprises less than one-third of said mirror surface.

13. The mirror assembly of claim 9, wherein said mirror surface comprises a peripheral edge, and wherein said antiglare material is treated on said upper area in spaced relation to and not in contact with any portion of said peripheral edge of said mirror surface.

14. The mirror assembly of claim 9, wherein said antiglare material is treated on said upper area of said mirror surface with a chroming process.

15. The mirror assembly of claim 9, wherein said mirror surface is oval shaped.

16. The mirror assembly of claim 15, wherein said oval shaped mirror surface has associated therewith a minor axis and a major axis, and wherein said upper area on which said antiglare material is treated is located in an upper portion of said mirror surface relative to the major axis of said mirror surface.

17. A cross-view mirror for a vehicle, comprising:

a mirror element comprising a convex mirror surface having an upper area and a lower area, said upper area capable of reflecting images located above said lower area, and said mirror surface facing in a direction toward the vehicle; and

an antiglare material treated on said upper area of said mirror surface darkening an image reflected thereby, and wherein said lower area of said mirror surface is free of antiglare material.

18. The cross-view mirror of claim 17, wherein said upper area of said mirror surface on which said antiglare material is treated comprises about one-third of said mirror surface.

19. The cross-view mirror of claim 17, wherein said upper area of said mirror surface on which said antiglare material is treated comprises less than one-third of said mirror surface.

20. The cross-view mirror of claim 17, wherein said mirror surface comprises a peripheral edge, and wherein said antiglare material is treated on said upper area in spaced relation to and not in contact with any portion of said peripheral edge of said mirror surface.

21. The cross-view mirror of claim 17, wherein said antiglare material is treated on said upper area of said mirror surface with a chroming process.

22. The cross-view mirror of claim 17, wherein said mirror surface is oval shaped.

23. The cross-view mirror of claim 22, wherein said oval shaped mirror surface has associated therewith a minor axis and a major axis, and wherein said upper area on which said antiglare material is treated is located in an upper portion of said mirror surface relative to the major axis of said mirror surface.

24. A cross-view, school bus mirror assembly, comprising:

a mirror element having a contoured outer surface, said mirror surface shaped to provide a wide angle field of view of a predetermined scene, which said view extends both in a horizontal direction and in a vertical direction along a front and at least one side of a school bus, said scene including images of both said front and said at least one side of said school bus;

a mirror pole;

the mirror element being affixed to the mirror pole and the contoured outer surface of the mirror element being used to provide the wide angle field of view of said predetermined scene to a driver of said school bus, while said driver drives said school bus;

a mirror mount for connecting the mirror pole to a front fender of said school bus; and

the contoured outer surface of the mirror element being a convex, generally dome shaped and contiguous mirror surface surrounded by a peripheral edge, the outer mirror surface proceeding in said vertical direction from an uppermost position to a lowermost vertical position and facing toward the driver of said school bus to which the mirror element is mounted, a portion of the outer surface, which comprises less than one-half of the surface taken in the vertical direction, beginning from a position spaced from the uppermost position on the contoured mirror surface and ending above a straight notional line which bisects the mirror surface in the horizontal direction, being treated with and comprising an antiglare material which reduces glare, including from sun rays, without rendering the treated surface opaque as to be non-reflective, the outer surface of the mirror element thereby comprising the treated surface and a non-treated surface, whereby the mirror surface enables the driver to simultaneously observe a first part of the scene at the treated surface and a second part of the scene at the non-treated surface;

wherein the portion treated to reduce glare is located in spaced relation to and not in contact with any portion of the peripheral edge of the mirror surface.

25. A cross-view, school bus or vehicle mirror assembly, comprising:

a mirror pole;

a mirror mount for connecting said mirror pole to a front fender of a school bus or vehicle;

a mirror element affixed to said mirror pole and having a contoured outer mirror surface comprising a convex, generally dome shaped mirror surface having a peripheral edge and having an upper area capable of reflecting images located above a bottom half portion of the mirror element, and the contoured outer mirror surface facing toward the school bus or vehicle to which the mirror element is mounted, and the contoured outer mirror surface of the mirror element facing toward a driver of the school bus or vehicle; and

an antiglare material treated on the upper area of the dome shaped mirror surface above a bottom half of said contoured outer mirror surface of said mirror element to reduce glare from sun rays emanating at least from a direction in front of the driver from the front or sides of the school bus or vehicle with respect to a first image portion located above the bottom half portion of the mirror element while darkening the first image portion reflected thereby,

wherein the bottom half portion of the mirror element is free of antiglare material that reflects a second image portion without darkening the second image portion; and

wherein the portion of said contoured outer mirror surface on which the antiglare material is disposed and treated is located in spaced relation to and not in contact with any part of the peripheral edge.