How to Disable Driver Assistance Features in the 2026 Mercedes CLA C174

Modern car safety features have saved countless lives and keep getting better every year. They help prevent accidents, but sometimes, these features can be implemented in ways that might do more harm than good, which is why many owners wonder if it’s possible to turn them off and how to do it if so.

We already did an article explaining why these features exist, but we will now focus on how to turn them off most effectively in particular vehicles over a series of articles. Each manufacturer has its own take on how to integrate the technology, so in this series we will focus on learning how to turn off distracting features on the 2026 Mercedes CLA C174.

Turning off the traffic sign recognition in the Mercedes CLA

The procedure is wonderfully simple. Once you start the vehicle, a small icon appears on the top left part of the screen with a traffic sign on it. The function is set to “on” by default and resets every time you lock the car. It is a clever way to easily disable a mandatory function that works in a pretty annoying manner by beeping and lowering your audio.

Simple to turn off traffic sign recognition system

Turning off lane keep assist and others in the Mercedes CLA

If you want to disable further assistants, you’ll have to do a bit more work. In the lower row of buttons in the center display, there is a permanent icon with a car. You press it and a menu opens, which allows you to choose which settings you want off at the time, including the lane keep assist, traffic sign recognition and others.

From there you can also press the settings icon to open a further menu, allowing you to control all of the available safety features. This isn’t as straightforward as the fixed button for the traffic signs but is still intuitive and easy enough.

Lots of customization options for the safety systems.

We will turn this segment into a series, where we tell you how to easily and successfully turn on or off the assistance features of modern vehicles, which is a method that becomes increasingly complicated due to modern regulations!