I haven’t read the DOT code in a while, so I genuinely don’t recall if they’re mandated, but I recall that all my trucks had them.
This is of absolutely no use in preventing people from a close merge on the passenger side where the driver definitely cannot see. Often the driver’s first indication that this has occurred is the crunch. I’ve never seen one of these accidents that wasn’t completely avoidable.
Having used DEX quite a bit over the years, they’re going to have major software issues if they don’t get developers to make their apps desktop friendly.
This could be good for a lot of casual users if they put the effort in to execute it well. It could also grow android tablet and phone sales. The idea of a single unified platform for desktop and mobile could be helpful for a lot of users. Especially if one device can do both.