Turquoise not required, thirty days for comments

The stamp on this IT Home page is 2026/10/24 11:48:36. It retells a Verge report from the day before: the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is pushing a proposal for one external marker light on automated vehicles, called turquoise and also blue-green on the page, so pedestrians, other drivers, and officers can see that an automated system is driving. Later on the same page the word used is cyan. Turquoise, blue-green, and cyan are all the page's words. This story does not collapse them into one wavelength. Recognizable at a glance is the page's description of what the light is for. It is not a recognition test that has already been run. The Verge's date is October 23. The stamp on this page is October 24. The proposal says the agency is pushing it. It is not a rule that took effect on the day of that report.

The status of the document means it is not yet a rule. The page says this is a proposed revision of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108, FMVSS 108, and that it is in a comment period. The public may comment within 30 days after formal publication in the Federal Register. The 30 days start at that publication, not at the stamp on this page. The day the Register publishes is not printed here. So the sentence that comments are open now, and the sentence that the 30 days start at publication, both stay. They are not collapsed into a deadline that has already been set.

The light itself is not mandatory. The page says the cyan automated-driving marker is not required. If a manufacturer chooses to fit it, color, brightness, count, mounting position, and how it activates must follow one standard, so makers do not use external signals that are easy to mix up. The agency says cyan can stay clear of red, amber, and white, already widely used for brake lights, turn signals, and headlamps, and of the blue-red flash used by emergency vehicles. Staying clear of those colors is their reason. It is not a finished test of misreading.

The proposal also has a section for vehicles with no steering wheel and no pedals. The page says some requirements written for a human driver would be dropped: that a turn signal must cancel itself when the wheel returns to center, and that the hazard lights and the high-beam and low-beam switch must be operated by the driver. The agency says this is to reduce outdated regulatory obstacles for driverless vehicles without lowering road safety. Without lowering is their statement. Mercedes-Benz has previously tested a blue-green marker on an L3 vehicle in California. Waymo, Zoox, and Nuro are described as possible beneficiaries. Possible is not already covered. That Mercedes test is a past event. It does not mean this proposal is already in force.