I got my first alert from the Mercedes this morning.  Yes…I’ve been driving it to work, even though I can just walk it.  Put it down to new car love.  In the state I’m in, I’d drive it to the mailbox on the corner to post a letter.

Anyway…I was wondering how the driver alert system worked.  The speedometer has a central digital display and can show the driver all kinds of information about the car, and you can drill through a bunch of menus to tell it what you want it to display while you’re driving.  Right now I just have it set to show me the regular and trip odometers, but it can show me everything from the direction I’m traveling and the name of the street I’m on to how many mile’s per gallon I’m getting.  Supposedly, that’s where all the car’s various system alerts appear too.

It was cold this morning here in Baltimore, and I let the car warm up while I squeegeed the dew off the windows.  I’d tossed my jacket in the back seat but didn’t properly close the door.  When I finished with the windows I tossed the squeegee back in the trunk and got in the car.  As soon as I started driving down the road a "ding" like that sound in an airliner when the Fasten Your Seat Belts sign comes on, came out of all twelve speakers of the stereo system and the entire central display in my speedometer lit up red.  There was an overhead view of the car drawn in the middle of it, with the back driver’s side door open.  I think there may have been a warning too across the bottom that a door had been left ajar, but I didn’t read it because the sight of the graphic was enough.  I pulled right back over and got out and shut the door.

Nice.  It got my attention but it didn’t slap me in the face doing it.  Some cars are just plain rude about that sort of thing, and some are so polite about it you never even notice the little red warning light on the display until way after its too late.  The Mercedes will tell me things like when a light has burned out, or my tire pressure is low, or when and what routine mantainance I need to have done, so I was wondering how much of a nag it might get to being.  But this is good.