Mercedes-Benz debuts turquoise exterior lights to indicate the car is self-driving | A visual indicator for other drivers
Mercedes-Benz debuts turquoise exterior lights to indicate the car is self-driving
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
Aye, credit where it's due; this is a great way to differentiate between human and machine controlled devices. It's detectable by both, and can help in cases where people blame the autodrive, or car companies claim human error.
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.
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.
Woooooosh
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.
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Whacking on the hazard lights can be helpful when reversing, for light.
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.
Maybe light placement is more important?
How about next to the brake lights?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Seems like a bad idea - you know someone is going to figure out how to take advantage of that.
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
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.
My stupid ass car has brake checked people while self driving. I wish it had this...
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.
Do the same thing, but hook it up to a camera that detects if your eyes are on the road lol.
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.
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?
Watch this turn into a status thing that starts trending.
"I have the turquoise checkmark light on my car, and you don't."
I think it would be also cool to have an indicator if the car in front of you has cruise control on
That would be great for the driver himself. The amount of times I've had to play leap frogs with someone only to be given a dirty look when hes the one that constantly slows down and accelerates.
Wow I’ve been thinking about that for a while now. We should be able to tell when someone is driving or an Ai is.
This could be useful as a communication medium where the car transmits data through the light to the neighbours.
If only there was some kind of universal communication technology that didn't require line of sight, worked over distances out to say 100m and was reasonably inexpensive to implement...then we wouldn't need to communicate using the modern equivalent of semaphore.
Blue bubbles?
And I live in California. Of course we're going to help rich people avoid all consequences of their actions. Because paying attention to where your 1 ton metal missile is going is too much to ask. But only if you can afford the turquoise lights.
I don't think I understand how adding safety indicators to elevate awareness of self driving vehicles helps rich people avoid all consequence.
As a poor person, I'd like to know if a car I'm driving by is self driving.
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.
Now that's multitasking!
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.
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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.
If we need warning lights for self driving cars, the technology is not ready.
Eh, it's probably good to have regardless?
It's less about being careful around the car and more about how you might interact with it. For example, honking the horn or flashing your beams wouldn't have the same effect. On that note, it might be nice to have some way of telling a self driving car to temporarily use elevated sensors or something, the same way a horn tells a driver that something is wrong. As long as there's a way to prevent abuse of the system
I don't know much about these lights, but we COULD use some new standards in general with how many things have changed with cars in recent years. Brake lights on electric vehicles being another thing to consider.
That "gentle horn" everyone wants being another
"Gentle horn" sounds like a 80s romantic pop song.
You're still the driver in the self-driving car. If someone honks, you have pedals and a wheel in front of you. It always comes down to driver neglect. It's like blaming the cruise control for speeding, but giving cruise control more responsibilities.
Okay that is the first argument for it I've read that actually makes sense
Lol, this is like calling the turn signals warning lights. Letting others know something about your driving isn't a warning, it's just an indicator.
To play the devil's advocate: early cars needed a guy with a flag im front of them because people were used to horses and carriages and not automobiles. After a while that stopped being a thing.
But yeah, self driving cars are not really ready.
Id argue that motorized carriages back then werent ready for the public.
I havent seen a lvl 3 yet, have you? Id like to know your actual thoughts on driving one. I only see Teslas and such, and they don't have them yet.
If we need signs saying student driver, the driver is not ready
If we need signs saying "Baby on Board", the driver isn't ready
There are warning signs to indicate people learning to drive in ex-Soviet countries (such yellow triangles to put behind the glass), even though they are driving with an instructor.
Now when I think about it, it's been some time since I've seen that sign.
Somewhat similarly in the Netherlands, in case you fail your practical driving exam three times you still get a license but you can only drive cars marked with special yellow number plates.
They're pretty common in the US as well, but it's just a sign that says "student driver".
I've also seen orange triangles used in vehicles like horse-drawn carriages that can't go as fast as regular traffic, mostly in connection to Amish people.
How about we:
Why is there this constant false dichotomy implying that the only way to test self driving cars is a wild west of no regulation?
And also who said that self driving cars are safer than humans? Tesla's numbers are all statistical lies (in fact Teslas were recently shown to have the most accidents), Cruise just shutdown in SF because they were a liability, and Waymo is heavily limited in its time/weather/areas for driving.
Sure. But we're jumping into the deep end by legally allowing the driver to be exempt from distracted driving laws. There's a big difference between testing the technology and relying on the technology.
Well, theirs probably isn't.
🤦
if we need warning lights for ANYTHING, the humanity is just not ready.
One could argue that brake lights are a warning light 🤔.
Best keep away from rail crossings then.
So we aren’t ready for anything. Got it. 🚨🚦🚒🚑🚓🚧
Same purpose as warning labels: to keep ding dongs alive so they can spend more money