They would probably just use the existing amber lights so noone would know if you were turning or not. I’m not bitter.
Reminded me of this Technology Connections video, in which the dude explained (among other brake-light related things) how some law allows electric vehicles to get away with not using their brake lights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0YW7x9U5TQ
Yeah my electric 208 is kinda like that (if I remember the video well, watched it a while ago) but since it’s Europe there actually is a regulation about how much a car can decelerate before break lights come on, so instead of making the system turn the lights on they throttle how much it can decelerate for recharge and still makes you use the break to use full regen (and eventually the actual brakes, of course). So it’s not a real “one pedal driving”.
One pedal driving just sounds like motion sickness city.
Nah not at all tbh, you can get very smooth deceleration with it and it doesn’t feel floaty or whatever, it does take a tiny adjustment to how you drive, you don’t coast anymore but rather you can finely control your deceleration by how much you lift the accelerator, it’s quite nice to be honest I always drive it in that mode (even if it’s not real one pedal).
I’ll be the judge of that once I’m a passenger in such a scenario.
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I feel like if your car is doing anything to actively slow itself down (as in apart from just cruising) it should turn the brake lights on.
Yeah, just have an accelerometer that triggers them
Or just have it come on whenever you lift off the accelerator. I like how some cars flash the brake lights under hard braking as well. That should be more standard.
I think the flashing is actually when an assistive system triggers the break
Would speed up crosswalks a lot too. Whenever I cross a crosswalk with my dog I don’t want to risk me misjudging the braking of cars so I tend to really wait until I’m sure they’re stopping.
Once we have proper self driving cars none of these recent “innovations” like that or the speed limiting would matter.
Ideally self driving cars would also be without a steering wheel and just be half width with a single seat or two seats facing each other to reduce energy requirements. You could just develop this with a manhattan style project and test it in a single city banning all other private cars except delivery vehicles.
This sure riled people up.
Risk Compension predicts that drivers would simply use this new information to drive more aggressively, negating any possible safety benefits.
The classic example we already have of this is when you are stopped at a side road about to enter the main road, and a car coming towards you on the main road signals to turn in.
Many people take the fact the other car has their turn signal on as a guarantee that it’s safe to emerge, but any good driving instructor will tell you to wait until the car actually begins to turn before you yourself emerge.
They had their signal on but that doesn’t mean they’re actually going to DO what the signal said they would.
Same with the front brake light. It would be like “Well their front brake light came on, so I assumed it was safe to step into the crosswalk” NO. They could have just tapped the brake a second, doesn’t mean they saw you, or they will actually stop.
I was having a very hard time seeing any possible benefit of a front brake light, since nobody accident prone ever looks in their mirrors.
I suppose in today’s world of automatic transmissions that move the car forward whenever the brakes are released, they might serve some purpose at a four-way stop adding information about immediate intent of the other parties, but even there… that’s more of a Darwinian situation where people who get into crashes at four way stops are sorting themselves out from the rest of reasonably competent drivers. If they’re going fast enough for injuries at a four way stop, they deserve what they get. If they get a minor fender bender - that’s a lesson to read the other traffic better next time.
I still think rear signaling could be improved dramatically by using a wide third-brake light to show the intensity of braking.
For example – I have seen some aftermarket turn signals which are bars the width of the vehicle, and show a “moving” signal starting in the center and then progressing towards the outer edge of the vehicle.
So now take that idea for brake. When you barely have your foot on the brake pedal, it would light a couple lights in the center of your brake signal. Press a little harder and now it’s lighting up 1/4 of the lights from the center towards the outside edge of the vehicle. And when you’re pressing the brake pedal to the floor, all of the lights are lit up from the center to the outside edges of the vehicle. The harder you press on the pedal, the more lights are illuminated.
Now you have an immediate indication of just how hard the person in front of you is braking. With the normal on/off brake signals, you don’t know what’s happening until moments later as you determine how fast you are approaching that car. They could be casually slowing, or they could be locking up their wheels for an accident in front of them.
I see a lot of those on trucks here in the south. Good for when you are towing shit so people can see around all your junk in the trailer.
Does your state not require good lights on the trailers? I just built a new trailer last year, I was required to have full working brake and turn signals along with running lights, but I went the extra step and included more brake/turn lights on the front and rear of the fenders, along with reverse lights plus four marker lights along each side. Trailers are hard enough to see, I didn’t want to make it harder for anyone by just sticking with the bare minimum.
I think only brake lights are required I’ve never seen turn signals on them. I suspect the ones I’ve seen with those aftermarket ones drive those trailers on other states with more strict requirements
Wow that’s got to be almost worthless. As you say, it just takes some idiot with a load obscuring the vehicle lights and suddenly nobody behind them knows what’s going on. What’s next, are we going to make tail lights optional?
Japan introduced brake lights that increase intensity based on how hard the driver was braking. 20+ years ago. They tested it in the US and drivers found it to be “confusing.”
I suspect because there’s no consistency in the brightness of vehicle lights. But that’s one of the reasons why I think an incremental light bar would be better, there’s no variation between vehicles. You could even make it more informative by flashing the whole bar when you first brake, so someone behind you can more easily see how much of the bar is being lit up.
If you want that, just light up the first and last LED always.
That’s a good point, although flashing does help to grab attention, but it can also be annoying when the person is driving with their foot on the brake pedal.
If Japan introduced that they never caught on, unless it’s specific to an area or model of car.
90% of the things that Japan introduced according to comment sections on the internet never happened (or never made it past the prototype stage) and the rest was actually introduced in Korea, not in Japan.
The Japanophilia is strong with a lot of people on the internet.
Yeah I mean I’ve been commuting 2 hrs a day in Japan for almost 10 years now-- you’d think I would’ve seen these brake lights by now
probably because thats a terrible way to do it. It would be noticeable if a car started braking and then started braking much harder, but if they slam on the brakes you don’t see anything change, just a normal brake light.
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BMWs need a speeding indication more than a braking one /s
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Plenty of cars flash their brake lights when ABS(/ESP?) engages, which is reasonable and should be a legal requirement IMO.
There’s lots of room to give additional info in between that and “brake light is on because the driver doesn’t understand that they can do mild adjustments by letting off the gas / stupid bitch-ass VW PHEV computer thinks using cruise control downhill with electric regen requires the motherfucking brake lights”. It’s like no-one realizes or cares that brake lights lose all purpose if they’re on when the car isn’t meaningfully decelerating. ARGH.
BMW should focus on making the turn signals work first.
I think that’s a neat idea, but we could instead, collectively, just do better at following other cars at a safe distance. I know it’s impractical to expect all drivers on the road everywhere to change their behavior, but it’s also persistently frustrating as someone who has for years frequently been stuck in traffic to see 95% of drivers insist on following less than a car-length behind. Following too closely to enable decision-making or accommodate other drivers is the cause of like 98% of both traffic accidents and congestion, according to my completely anecdotal and made up research.
There’s this idea I’ve been considering for a long time.
Imagine putting a remote controlled firework smoke bomb under the tailpipe, hidden from sight. At best a really stinky one that smells like burned rubber or something.
When someone follows to closely, just fake an engine issue or something by activating the smoke bomb and fill their AC air intake with the smell of burned rubber for weeks. Just to teach them to not follow too closely again.
I suspect a lot of that has to do with the entitled way people are driving these days. If you leave a car length gap, some kid will wrecklessly attempt to cram their way in because your lane momentarily moved slightly faster.
I have seen some cars flash their brake lights when ABS is activated, but this would be better
The EU has approved G-triggered brake lights that do just that, flash rapidly on hard braking. I’ve only seen it on higher end cars so far, but they absolutely exist. Unfortunately in the US people stick brake flashers that blink in patterns every time they touch the brake. Mostly useless as they’re installed to be “look at me, aren’t I cool with my blinky brake lights?” rather than any additional safety.
Seems much more complicated than having the brake lights rapidly flash during hard braking. But of course we couldn’t do that in the US because our turn signals/hazard lights are red
Turn signals can be either red or amber in the US.
yeah, but they shouldn’t be allowed to be red to begin with.
I think a secondary light that blinks quickly would be a good signal of emergency braking. Like some aftermarket motorcycle taillights that start with a blinking pattern before they stay on, but reverse the order.
So, standard brake light comes on at the standard time, at the first touch of the brake. For stronger braking, the second light comes on. For emergency braking, the standard brake light stays lit while the second light begins blinking frantically.
Edit for consistency
That could probably be implemented in most existing vehicles, and at least it would provide more information.
I think some cars also turn on the hazards automatically if you really hammer the breaks.
That would serve the same purpose without and extra light, I think they’re into something
Like someone said in the hnews comments, this might work for auto transmission but with manual gearing you’ve got people using engine braking on hills.
Also like stated in the article the colouring is going to be an issue and trying to see some green lights whilst the headlights are on (full beam fog lights perhaps too?) doesn’t seem practicable to me.
Automatics also allow for engine braking. From a quick search, it sounds like a toss-up as to whether that triggers brake lights. Regardless, the article mentions the benefit is not only from cars slowing down, but also from indicating that a car is preparing to stop or “that a stationary vehicle might initiate movement”. Neither of those can be done by an engine brake, so front brake lights would still have a benefit even with a driver that likes engine braking.
Last I heard something like 98% of new cars/trucks sold in America have automatic.
with computers these days an acceleration based system should be achievable for all types of cars. hybrid/electric cars already do it with regen braking.
hybrid/electric cars already do it with regen braking.
Not all of them. It is becoming more common, but for a while Hyundai and Kia didn’t do this, and I know my older Ford doesn’t.
Probably just in the US, since brake lights are only required when pressing the brake pedal. Mercedes illuminates them but then turns the brake lights off once the vehicle comes to a stop using regen.
Possibly, and I’d be interested in some sort of 360° LED on top of a vehicle to indicate to pedestrians and other drivers alike of its (de)acceleration.
But jamming some non standard colours in what is a long term understanding on the front of a vehicle I can’t really get with and would like to see the impact to people with partial / colour blindness with using such a system.
Like, does the average pedestrian know what the green and red lights mean on an aircraft? I bet not.
fair point about color blindness, but surely there is some 4th color that would work well with red/amber/white.
Well you should educate yourself on the rules of the method of travel no matter.
If you were to go up in the air and you didn’t educate yourself on what the lights mean, you’re going to ruin everyone else’s day in your incredibly dangerous ignorance.
You don’t take a paddle boat onto the water without understanding some basic principles of water navigation… why would roads in this specific cause be any different? We already do with most land methods, this one is gonna be hinge? Nah. Ignorance isn’t an excuse.
I have, and that’s my point.
I’m a lowly drone pilot that isn’t really made to understand what those lights mean but did out of my sheer curiosity.
But the average pedestrian is going to take some, teaching?
First of all, this would be illegal in many countries.
Second of all: we can differentiate cars by: has red lights, back.
If we lose this option we can no longer differentiate easily if there is a car coming towards us or driving away from us.
They tested using a green light for the front brake light, not a red one
Flashing blue would be neat.
It is to colorblind people. You could use something else of course, just saying…
It’s doesn’t matter, since the absence or presence of light would still be perceived by colour blind people. It doesn’t change how they would drive, as they are already driving with the knowledge of colour blindness in mind when looking at tail lights.
It’s doesn’t matter, since the absence or presence of light would still be perceived by colour blind people. It doesn’t change how they would drive, as they are already driving with the knowledge of colour blindness in mind when looking at tail lights.
Tail lights being red is fine if you live with the most common forms of colorblindness which fall into what we call “red-green colorblind.” It is still a different color than headlights.
Now put those same red-green lights on the front, and we have a problem.
They could use traffic light green. There’s not any problems identifying those even in places with the lights mounted horizontally. There’s enough difference in saturation you can tell the difference even with colorblindness.
But why? Again, the perception would be absence or presence of light on a standardized indicator.
FYI signal lights are much more strictly regulated in Europe, such as position, colour, shape and strength.
This study is from Austria.
A lot of colorblind people can tell the difference between red-green and white.
They just percieve red-green as the same.
So they lose the visual cue for front-back under the proposed change.
Colorblind person here. If we’re talking about limited visibility differentiation of front and back, the color of light is way less noticeable than whether we’re looking at headlights or not (based on intensity). There would be no issue telling whether we’re looking at a front brake light or a back brake light so long as the front brake light has headlights around it.
‘Here’s an idea: let all those around you know your status.’
‘Revolutionary!’
It’s weird we haven’t already done this, but good.
I read the article and the next one comes up: “Mouse Sperm Structure Unveils Asthenozoospermia Mechanisms” and my co-worker was like wtf are you reading.
Don’t worry, my fellow americans, we’ll still manage to fuck it up.
They’ll likely give those front brake lights an amber color
It’s possible. Red really is only supposed to be on the back to indicate the rear of the vehicle.
It’s why on stretches of road where passing in oncoming lanes is legal, they tell you to turn on your headlights (daytime headlights section.) Its so that there is a distinguishing feature between the front and rear of the car.
The reason why I made my comment is because in the US some car manufacturers use the rear brake lights for the indicator lights too. Which is just stupid and dangerous and thankfully illegal in Europe.
It would be really stupid to have amber brake lights in the front. And given US car manufacturers track record, they’d be so stupid to repurpose the front indicator lights as front brake lights to cut costs.
Make it blue or green or any other color, but not amber or white.
The amber color should only be used for the indicator lights, and should be amber on the front, side and back of the car.
The combined indicator/brake light thing you guys do is fucking stupid, so there’s a precedent.
Agreed. Are they turning, or just braking periodically with a taillight out? Who knows!
I also love the front turn signals that turn off that headlight. Dumb as hell for everyone.
Also, animated signals should be banned. On or off, no flashing, glowing, or sliding.
Don’t even get me started on the wild and wonderful design ‘features’ on modern cars. Fucking hell, they want you to do anything but drive the thing and pay attention to the road.
I’ve always hated that. I feel like I’m seeing it less and less on newer vehicles, though, so maybe manufacturers are also realizing that it’s stupid as hell.
Or maybe it’s just not worth the cost to have two different but mostly identical versions of a very expensive and highly integrated modern taillight housing for different markets.
I hope so. I dug up this old video I watched ages ago that articulates really well why they’re a bad idea.
Clearly it’s your fault for both breaking and going around a corner at the same time. Who does that?
Can you edit that to ‘braking’, and I’ll delete this comment, please? It’s breaking my brain. :)
It’s too late, he already broke his car while going around the corner.
Struggled with this for a second, then I figured it out…
The brake light coming ON isn’t the important part, like the rear brake lights… it’s the brake lights turning OFF that’s important in the front.
So maybe, now hear me out, MAYBE we need to invert that. Have front brake lights that are on ALL the time, and pressing the brake turns them off to indicate safety?
Can I have indicators that are in the same place on all cars and not buried in the headlight? That’d be cool.
