Advanced driver assists come to the world of big-rig class 8 trucks

Called "Detroit Assist 5.0," it features many of the same assists you might find in a current Mercedes-Benz passenger vehicle: adaptive cruise control down to zero mph, lane-keeping assistance, automatic emergency braking, and even blind spot monitoring that keeps a virtual eye on the passenger-side length of the trailer as well.Although Volvo (for instance) has offered automatic emergency braking on its biggest trucks for some years now, Daimler says that the model year 2020 Freightliner Cascadia is the first US class 8 truck to offer a full ADAS suite and is first to market with trailer-length blind spot monitoring and lane keeping.The systems work in the same way as you'd expect on a light passenger vehicle, fusing together sensor inputs from radar and cameras. (In other words, you can pick if you want to be closer to one or the other lane divider.)Daimler Trucks North America's general manager for marketing and strategy, Kary Schaefer, says that the systems will have positive safety benefits and pointed to a 72-percent reduction in rear-end collisions with the automatic braking assist.