Mercedes-Benz CLA - long-term report

Screen-time. It’s the scourge of our generation. Yes, I appreciate you’re reading this on a screen. But at least you’re not driving. If you are, pull over. Maniac.

The CLA I’m living with has the ‘Superscreen’ as standard, which is in fact two sharp, vibrant, rapid 14.1in touchscreens built into the dashboard. All new CLAs get the central display, but beyond the base ‘Sport’ and ‘AMG Line Executive’ trim, the passenger-side TV is added for ‘AMG Line Premium’ and beyond. Why Mercedes got Alan Partridge to name the trim levels, I’ve no idea.

Anyway, the passenger screen can take some of the workload off the driver, because your co-driver is free to operate the radio, scroll and shuffle playlists, or adjust the car’s settings. Bet the kids will love that. They can conduct Teams meetings and browse for new apps too.

If you’ve run out of I-Spy inspiration, the passenger can simply entertain themselves.

There are games: Angry Birds, supermarket own-brand Mario Kart, but disappointingly no Grand Theft Auto 6. And you can stream video, via Disney Plus or YouTube.

As the Mercedes UK website has it: “The MBUX Superscreen includes a 14in front passenger display. On this personal display and control interface, passengers can watch films, use productivity apps or play games while on the move. To prevent you from being distracted, the contents are not visible from the driver's side.”

I’ll just repeat that last line in case you glazed over from corpo-speak.

“To prevent you from being distracted, the contents are not visible from the driver's side.” Hmm. Define ‘visible’?

No, seriously. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘visible’ means “capable of being seen; perceptible by the sense of sight".

As it’s my job to drive the CLA, the passenger screen has been neglected. So I asked my girlfriend to take the wheel for an afternoon, and I got stuck into the Superscreen. First, I opted to catch up on some World Cup footie highlights. After prodding here and buffering there, Brazil vs Norway was cued up in glorious technicolour HD.

“Ugh, can you not? That’s incredibly distracting,” came the immediate harrumph from my beloved.

What? Wait, can you see that? I don’t believe you.

“Yes,” the lovely harrumph scowled. “You’ve got football on, the yellow team are playing the red team, and it’s really annoying. Stop it.”

I was staggered. I presumed the screen would have some kind of coating applied that masked viewing moving images from oblique angles. Long-haul airlines use it so your seat neighbour isn’t offended – or plot-spoiled – by what you’re viewing. And there are a billion phone screen protectors with privacy filters that can only be viewed straight-on.

Not in the CLA. No, Mercedes has entrusted you – a fallible, screen-addicted human being – with this technology, and then to get it out of a legal cul-de-sac, it’s applied yet more technology. The CLA spies on you.

According to the Mercedes UK website: “Visual discretion [is] enabled by the selfie and video camera. If the driver looks at the front passenger display for too long (approx two seconds) while driving, the contents are faded out. When the driver looks forwards again, the contents are shown again.”

I’m already unhappy about the CLA using facial recognition to know who’s driving it. It feels creepy, like I’m commuting in Big Brother’s company car from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I understand that’s handy if you share your car around the family and get bored changing the infotainment, mirror and seat settings every journey. I appreciate that noticing when a driver is getting sleepy saves lives. But this system isn’t fit for the purpose of stopping a driver watching TV.

First off, a two-second distraction is still quite a lot. In two seconds at 70 miles per hour, you travel 62.5 metres. That’s 13 CLA car-lengths.

Sure, the CLA has all the usual driver assists. It bongs and beeps and the lane-keep assist is extremely insistent. If it senses a collision is possible, it’ll brake for you as a last resort. But this is not a fully-autonomous ‘self-driving car.’ And neither is literally any car for sale in the world right now. Not in all conditions, at all times, in the eyes of the law, anyway.

Second, so what if the screen notices the driver is staring directly at the TV? The content is still distracting even if it’s just in your peripheral vision.

Your brain’s concentration level freefalls when it’s being presented with multiple stimuli. According to UK road safety charity Brake, drivers are four times as likely to crash when talking on the phone, even if it’s via handsfree-Bluetooth. You’re watching the road but your mind is elsewhere. Now imagine you’re vaguely keeping track of a white-knuckle penalty shoot-out.

I asked Mercedes for an official comment on why it left the Superscreen’s media nakedly visible to the driver, and asked it to explain how it expects drivers not to be distracted.

It replied: “The eye-tracking system implemented in our vehicles represents state-of-the-art technology and has undergone comprehensive validation and certification in line with Mercedes-Benz standards.

"We take this topic very seriously and continuously evaluate our systems to ensure they meet our high expectations for safety and customer experience. Based on our assessments, we are confident that the system offers customers a reliable and effective solution.”

Based on some real-world experience, I’m unconvinced. Something tells me we’ll look back on this ‘Add Screens, Ask Questions Later” era of interior design the same way modern society cringes at pre-war doctors advising expectant mothers to calm their nerves by chain-smoking cigarettes.