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ARB, the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, and the
Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) have agreed
on an interim policy to address retrofit visibility concerns for
off-road diesel vehicles. 

The interim policy will exempt any vehicles that cannot be
retrofit without impairing the operator’s vision to the front,
sides, or rear of the vehicle from the March 1, 2010 retrofit
requirement for large fleets of off-road diesel vehicles.  ARB
will release details regarding the method to measure visibility
impairment, as well the process for applying for a safety
exemption as soon as possible.

Only large fleets without adequate credits will need to pursue
this exemption.  (As described in
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/ordiesel/faq/faq-early-credit.pdf,
many large fleets will not need to apply retrofits at all in
2010 and 2011 due to the new credit provisions.)  Fleets that
must complete retrofits in 2010 should begin by retrofitting
those vehicles for which retrofits may be installed without
impacting operator visibility (for example, under the hood or out
of site of the operator).  

The safety exemption will only reduce a fleet’s total retrofit
requirement if the fleet could not satisfy the requirements
without retrofitting a vehicle that cannot be retrofit without
impacting operator visibility.  For example, if a fleet has 100
vehicles, and 50 cannot be retrofit due to visibility impacts,
but 50 could be, the fleet must still retrofit 20 percent of
their total horsepower from all 100 vehicles.  

For more information and a background on this issue, you may
view the interim policy online at:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/ordiesel/documents/retrofitvisibility.pdf

For more information on the off-road regulation, please visit
our homepage at:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/ordiesel/ordiesel.htm