Dazzle Crawler

"Dazzle Crawler" is the colloquial name assigned to any Crawler class of vehicle outfitted with an array of lights and lasers designed to draw attention to the vehicle. Dazzle Crawlers are unique to Mars and an easily recognizable facet of Martian culture.
Dazzle Crawlers came about as the Martian tribes began adopting crawlers and other imported ground vehicles. Crawler driving became a popular career in Native Martian society, delivering goods between settlements and to larger colonies for export. Crawler drivers initially had difficulty traveling during Mars' Dust Season due to the severely diminished visibility during dust storms. Collisions and other accidents were high, which proved costly for Martian crawler drivers.
The Native Martians first attempted to augment their vehicles with vibrant, reflective, and luminescent paint, but this did little to cut through the billowing dust. Drivers then tried affixing noisemakers, loudspeakers, and sirens to their vehicles as an auditory warning to any nearby traffic. Unfortunately, the thin atmosphere of Mars means that sound does not attenuate as far on Earth. When coupled with the already loud conditions within a typical crawler, sound cues did little to reduce collisions.
Dazzle Crawlers reached their final form when Martian drivers began affixing gimballed lasers and powerful strobe lights to all sides of their vehicles. These multicolored lights finally achieved the goal of cutting through the obscuring clouds of dust, drastically increasing the range at which crawler drivers could see each other. Convoys began to form around Dazzle Crawlers as the leading vehicle in a convoy would use its array of dazzling lights to guide the way. Each subsequent vehicle in the convoy would follow the lights of the vehicle before it.
The array of lights and lasers on Dazzle Crawlers are often personalized to the driver, sometimes using specific colors with cultural or religious significance, other times arbitrarily arranged by the drivers' aesthetic preferences. Sometimes drivers just array whatever lights they can afford or scavenge together. More organized convoys, on the other hand, prescribe certain colors to mark a vehicle's position in the convoy hierarchy or indicate the direction of travel. As a holdover from vehicle designs imported from Earth, red tends to mark the rear of a vehicle, while white, yellow and amber will usually be used to the front of a vehicle.
Dazzle Crawler drivers are very proud of their vehicles and will often turn on the light array to show off, even when there is no dust storm around. This can be an awesome, if not irritating, sight to behold at night, which is perhaps why Martian children are attracted to these vehicles, chasing down Dazzle Crawlers as they pass through or near their village. Dazzle Crawlers also often retain the noisemakers and vibrant paint schemes of their predecessors out of tradition. The paint schemes in particular have grown more ornate and intricate, replicating the artistic styles used to decorate religious temples.
Transnational Aerospace Security Alliance (TASA) military personnel tend to hold a disdain for Dazzle Crawlers. The vehicles prove to be more than just a minor annoyance for a high tech military force, as the Dazzle Crawlers distract and blind drivers to obstacles along their path. The lasers also interfere with optical sensors and laser guidance systems, and can confuse the light-mapping sensors on REDCAM camouflage systems, rendering the wearer temporarily visible if a Dazzle Crawler strobes across it. The lights also interfere with stealth tactics, tactical (nonverbal) communication, and visual guidance systems for aircraft. Attempts to ban Dazzle Crawlers or limit their use to low-visibility conditions has been met with stiff resistance and defiance on cultural grounds.

Class

Crawler