Mercedes-Benz debuts turquoise exterior lights to indicate the car is self-driving | A visual indicator for other drivers::undefined
That’s actually a fantastic idea
tells me what cars i need to be extra careful around.
yes i know people are horrible at driving, but at least the average person is predictable.
Rule #1: constant foresight and respect to other drivers
Rule #2: Expect mistakes, illegal u-turns, and people taking right of way
I for one would like to know when another car isn’t being driven by a human.
Eventually the reverse will be equally important. So this will be a good idea for decades at least.
FSD already has a lower mortality rate than human-driven vehicles.
because the’re mostly tested under extremely safe conditions, and current self driving regularly asks you to take back over (you also have to still pay attention and have your hands on the wheel) which makes it level 2. by definition, the human is driving.
Even if this would be a good idea, you can’t just put some non regulated lights on a car. This would need a law change in Germany to be approved and would probably take years of burocrazy until she get beards figured out the exact hue these lights need to emit. But I guess Mercedes already wrote that law for our government to copy. How convenient.
But I guess Mercedes already wrote that law for our government to copy. How convenient.
How dare a company try to work with governments to create a new safety feature!
How is this a safety feature though? Are they saying we have to be extra careful around self-driving cars? If so then the car shouldn’t be considered to be self-driving. If not, then what’s the use?
I see a lot of people in this thread saying a car that needs any kind of indication of self-driving isn’t safe enough to be on the road, but that implies a single answer to questions like “is it safe enough?” In reality, different people will answer that question differently and their answer will change over time. I see it as a good thing to try to accommodate people who view self-driving cars as unsafe even when they are street-legal. So it’s not really a safety feature from all perspectives, but it is from the perspective of people who want to be extra cautious around those cars.
Personally I see an argument for self-driving cars that aren’t as safe as a average human driver. It’s basically the same reason you sometimes see cars with warning signs about student drivers: we wouldn’t consider student drivers safe enough to drive except that it’s a necessary part of producing safe drivers. Self-driving cars are the same, except that instead of individual drivers, its self-driving technology that we expect to improve and eventually become safer than human drivers.
Another way to to look at it is that there are a lot of drivers who are below-average in their driving safety for a variety of reasons, but we still consider them safe enough to drive. Think of people who are tired, emotional, distracted, ill, etc. It would be nice to have the same warning lights for those drivers, but since that’s not practical, having them only for self-driving cars is better than nothing.
Different regulations apply for the driver when the car is autonomous vs controlled by a driver.
These lights do not indicate driving assists like Tesla’s autopilot but full level 3 and above autonomy. In level 3 for example, Mercedes is responsible for any damages due to accidents - not the driver.
Also in level 3 the driver may legally use their phone, which is illegal for a car driver normally and give them a ticket.
So there IS a legal requirement to find out about the autonomy level of a car from outside.
Either way, it’s a useful starting point for the conversation to be had I guess.
Better for some proactivity then nobody ever progressing anything, right?
So should companies not try to innovate or invent things until the German government tells them it’s ok?
The point is that innovation should always come with regulations. This is not the wild west over here. We like to be alive and companies usually don’t care about that but only care about profits. So it’s a good idea that they can’t just do whatever they want. If they invent something actually new I’m quite happy that a third party will have a look at it before it’s mounted to a vehicle that kills me. I know that in the us this is handled the other way around but I guess the statistics for car accidents agrees with me.
If Mercedes only cared about profits why would they be putting this light on their cars?
No law change needed, the StZVO is a mere decree. Also EU law takes precedence Mercedes probably isn’t even going to bother getting it through German bureaucracy but will go straight to Brussels.
Ever see neons?
Not on German roads certainly not.
I’ve heard a lot about how Germans are strict with their driving laws, but I never expected them to be straight boring for no good reason.
It’s about traffic safety. Also rest assured German tuners have plenty of fun overtaking stock Porsches with their tuned Golfs on the Autobahn.
They are illegal in most European countires
This would not be illegal in the US, except some states forbid blue lights because they’re reserved for law enforcement. I haven’t seen any state regulation that rigorously defines “blue” like the NHTSA references to CIE 1931.
They would also have to be distinct enough to not cause confusion with the existing lights.
Gosh how could the world function without legislature having long sessions to decide which color some safety lights should emit.
Just seeing a turn signal on a Mercedes or BMW is enough for me to assume the driver isn’t the one in control.
That or it not being double parked.
Good idea I think, but these could be mistaken for reversing lights
On that note, can we talk about how shit a lot of reverse lights are? In addition to indicating that you’re backing up, they’re also supposed to function as a sort of rear-facing headlight so you can see what your backing up towards, but their size, placement, and brightness on a lot of cars makes them pretty much useless for that in a lot of cases.
I’m not saying they need to be as bright as your regular headlights, that would be serious overkill, but they should probably be noticeably brighter than a turquoise self-driving indicator light would ever need to be.
Found Alec’s Lemmy account
Whacking on the hazard lights can be helpful when reversing, for light.
Never thought of that… Also would get other drivers attention better, but is there any violation using hazards like that?
They’re not supposed to be rear-facing headlights. You don’t even have to have 2 of them (1 is acceptable as long as it’s visible enough). And unlike every other light, there’s no restriction on where it goes. It’s almost like it was an afterthought when they were writing the regulations.
They’re not supposed to be rear-facing headlights.
Blindly backing up in the dark is how you hit/run over things. Back up lights are supposed to provide enough light so you can see where you’re going.
Well, I will concede. I was certain I read a NHTSA interpretation denying this purpose, but the definition in FMVSS specifically states the purpose to “illuminate the road to the rear”.
But, there’s nothing in the regulation specifying how this is supposed to work (except the brightness of the lamp), and there’s no maximum height for the mounting location like the other lamps.
Exactly, we left it mostly up to the manufacturers and they’ve kind of abused that freedom and made them kind of shit for their intended purpose.
Now in the modern era, with backup cameras being standard equipment on new cars, you can maybe make an argument for them being a little redundant since most if not all backup cameras have some night vision capabilities, but a little redundancy isn’t a bad thing, if your camera gets fucked up you still probably want to see where you’re going when you’re backing out of your driveway to get it fixed.
Turquoise is also a shade of blue so I think that may make them illegal in the US since blue lights are only legal on emergency vehicles.
Bruh, the whole article is about the fact that they got permits for them
Fair enough… It didn’t really seem interesting enough to actually read the article but that answers that.
Seems like a bad idea - you know someone is going to figure out how to take advantage of that.
- Scofflaw - ai has no pride or ego so I can cut them off at will and they will always back down
- scammer - manufacturer has deep pockets - where’s my neck brace?
I’m sorry, but I can’t actually imagine that happening where I live.
Do people who cut others off care who’s driving?He’s referring to a group of people they intentionally cut others off and slam on the brakes to induce an accident that they can sue over. And it happens a lot. Dash cams are saviors.
I sure don’t
I’m sure some people take age, gender, and/or race into consideration when deciding who they can cut off
You might be giving them too much credit for thinking about what they’re doing.
Or you might be underestimating the lengths racists would go to just to inconvenience someone who looks like a foreigner
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Scofflaw - Why does the person in the self-driving car care? They’re just chilling. Zooming ahead of other cars doesn’t get you more than a few minutes ahead. If that’s really important to you, you should have left your house a few minutes earlier.
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Scammer - These cars are covered in cameras and radars. These are the opposite of the cars you want to jump in front of (except Tesla, which sucks). They’ll probably just film you launching yourself from the curb and stop before they hit you. I guess you can get on America’s Funniest Home Videos?
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I was just thinking, gosh, it’s been awhile since a new car signal dropped. This is a super interesting idea - not sure if it’s a GOOD idea but seems worth exploring
I think it’s a pretty good idea, at least for this period of transition towards self-driving vehicles. I think it’s useful information for other drivers to know that the vehicle is being controlled by a computer and not a real human.
Agreed! I would welcome that bit of additional information about a car I’m sharing the road with.
Kinda disagree, at least in the US the trogs are going to purposely mess with these vehicles as they already do but easier to target. But at least other countries don’t have lowbrow coal rollers.
But at least other countries don’t have lowbrow coal rollers.
Every nation has its idiots, definitely not unique to the US
True but something like rolling coal on people I just find uniquely stupid
My stupid ass car has brake checked people while self driving. I wish it had this…
Do the same thing, but hook it up to a camera that detects if your eyes are on the road lol.
Most FSD cars have that. People just ignore the warnings and popups.
The car should pull over then. Lol
Should, but when has that ever stopped businesses from doing what is cheap/easy?
My aftermarket Openpilot setup does this with a camera pointed at the driver. I’m good about paying attention but apparently if it alerts too many times that you’re distracted it will disable itself until you restart the car.
The reason for these lights is that Mercedes has Level 3 autonomy, so the car can self drive without the driver taking attention - for example here in Germany it is illegal (and there are photo traps) to use your phone on while driving. The lights are a solution to the exemption that you are allowed to use your phone while your car is on Level 3 autonomy.
On level 3 you need to be able to take over again within 30 seconds after the car actively asks you to do so.
30 seconds is a LOT of time.
Brb, wiring up a set of these so I can blame the car for missing a speed sign
… the ticket would still exist. Are you thinking you would be able to send it to your car manufacturer so they can look into what happened?
Blue bubbles?
Watch this turn into a status thing that starts trending.
“I have the turquoise checkmark light on my car, and you don’t.”
The point of the lights obviously being to push the responsibility onto the drivers around the self-driven car, rather than the manufacturer who actually made the faulty autopilot.
I have a prototype self driving system in my car. It drives logically and consistently, but it doesn’t behave like a human.
This would be a really helpful feature as self driving becomes more common.
why would i need to know another car is self driving though?
Same reason at this point as “Student Driver” bumper stickers - so you know it’s inexperienced and may behave weirdly, so maybe keep a bit more distance than usual or something.
So you don’t call the cops when you overtake them and see then eating a bowl of cereal, jerking it, while watching Flinstones.
That’s what I thought. I can only imagine idiots will see it and try fuck with it. Anyone else be like, “Okay… So just keep doing what I’m currently doing.”
It’s marketing, if anything.
My theory on Audi bringing out animated indicators was that they were quickly getting a damaging reputation of Audi drivers not using indicators; a reputation their competitor BMW is negatively married to. To prevent this, they appealed to making them unique and special, no one else had them, so the drivers would want to use them. Thus actively mitigating brand damage on BMW levels.
I would love to have an indicator for adaptive cruise control because the way it only reacts to the car right in front of you rather aggressively means it causes shockwave traffic jams unless the human driver behind you keeps enough distance.
Humans are already experts at causing shockwave traffic jams, so I wouldn’t count on them to reduce them.
I can only imagine assholes messing with the car MORE because the lights are on.
Apparently the car can only drive slowly automatically when you are stuck in traffic. So it shouldn’t be a huge problem
The ACC in my car maintains a good bit of distance to the car ahead and doesn’t respond suddenly to things coming closer than that distance. I’ve rarely if ever seen it brake inappropriately.
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