Mercedes-Benz debuts turquoise exterior lights to indicate the car is self-driving | A visual indicator for other drivers::undefined
If we need warning lights for self driving cars, the technology is not ready.
🤦
if we need warning lights for ANYTHING, the humanity is just not ready.
Same purpose as warning labels: to keep ding dongs alive so they can spend more money
The technology will never be ready if you don’t test it.
And I would argue we DON’T need warning lights since, while imperfect, most self-driving tech is already vastly better than your average driver. We should have warning lights for cars that DON’T have self-driving.
This is ultimately why we will NEVER have self-driving cars en masse, because society isn’t willing to take the necessary risks to improve the safety of everyone on the road.
How about we:
- Don’t let random customers test it and instead use heavily trained, specialized test drivers
- Require permitting and, e.g., an obstacle course before letting a company’s software be randomly updated and thrown on the road?
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.
Don’t let random customers test it and instead use heavily trained, specialized test drivers
At some point you need to test it on a large scale. Cruise was even running small-scale and was shut down in short order.
Require permitting and, e.g., an obstacle course before letting a company’s software be randomly updated and thrown on the road?
We do.
Why is there this constant false dichotomy implying that the only way to test self driving cars is a wild west of no regulation?
There isn’t.
And also who said that self driving cars are safer than humans?
…everyone?
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/12/human-drivers-crash-a-lot-more-than-waymos-software-data-shows/
Tesla’s numbers are all statistical lies (in fact Teslas were recently shown to have the most accidents)
[Citation needed]
Cruise just shutdown in SF because they were a liability
This is actually a great example of exactly what I’m talking about: GM will shut down Cruise permanently because they’ve discovered what I just said: society has zero tolerance for literally anyone getting hurt by autonomous vehicles, whereas the tens of thousands of people who are killed on our roads every year by individuals is considered acceptable.
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.
legally allowing the driver to be exempt from distracted driving laws.
Can you cite the legislation that exempts drivers using driver assistance systems from paying attention while driving?
There’s a big difference between testing the technology and relying on the technology.
No one should be relying on the technology.
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.
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
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.
As a Level 3 system, the driver is permitted to take their hands off the wheel, their feet off the pedals, and divert their attention away from the road. […]
The turquoise markers will alert other drivers to the fact that your vehicle is driving itself, so hopefully they won’t be alarmed if they see you doing other things while behind the wheel.
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.
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?
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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?
I’m sorry, but I can’t actually imagine that happening where I live.
Do people who cut others off care who’s driving?
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.
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.
Mercedes is a luxury brand. And as the article states, in California and Nevada drivers will get a legal pass on distracted driving if the system and lights are on.
So the drivers of these luxury cars are no longer responsible for what the car does.
The article says they are allowed to test the new indicators in those States, not that they get a legal pass…
In California, the permit will let Mercedes-Benz trial turquoise lights on test vehicles for two years. In Nevada, the automaker can start adding the feature to 2026 year production vehicles
Do you think it’s a better scenario for less awareness of self driving cars? If self driving is part of the future, this seems like a reasonable step imo.
why would i need to know another car is self driving though?
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.
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So you don’t call the cops when you overtake them and see then eating a bowl of cereal, jerking it, while watching Flinstones.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Since it’s Mercedes-Benz doing it, they’ll just write the new law themselves and tell the German minister of traffic to push it through.
Yes, the German economy still heavily relies on the car industry.
And it’s not just leverage, they literally employ “consultants” (lobbyists) who draft bills which are then introduced into the legislative process and voted on by members of parlament who have neither the time nor the technical know-how to understand them. German car makers effectively write their own regulations.
