All Cars, All the Time

Mercedes' Distronic Plus and Radar Detector Rules




In the most recent issue of AutoWeek, Bob Gritzinger made mention that Mercedes' Distronic Plus would have to be turned off wherever radar detectors are not legal. This is a pretty significant safety issue as Distronic's radar controls a whole host of accident avoidance systems. I contacted Bob to discuss this issue further. According to Bob, the owner's manual states that

"Due to its radar emitting nature DISTRONIC Plus may have an appearance similar to a radar detector to law inforcement (sic) officials. You may want to refer to this section of your operator's manual when asked."

Radar will play an increasing role in vehicle safety as onboard systems will demand greater knowledge of what is immediately around the car. There are other solutions for obstacle detection, such as Volvo's camera based BLIS, but optical detection requires that the camera can see--something that may not be possible in low visibility conditions such as fog or snow (arguably the most important times to have an obstacle detection system).

Radar cruise control had been around for awhile now and I have yet to hear of owners' being pulled over by police suspecting illegal radar detector use. However, it is understandable that police could be confused by this system. Bob says that he is researching this issue further and will have an article written for a future issue.