A recent incident whilst driving on the motorway got me thinking about the current design of car brake lights. Most cars work in the same way i.e. you push the brake pedal and the brake lights come on. It doesn’t matter what speed your doing or how much pressure you put on the brake pedal it’s still the same illuminated warning.
If you are driving at speed and the car in front brakes heavily the only indicator (apart from the brake lights) is that car getting closer to you much quicker. When the car in front brakes lightly there is less of a problem but as mentioned earlier there is only one type of illuminated warning. Obviously keeping a safe distance should allow you enough time to brake safely but the reality is that people don’t drive within the safe stopping zone. I think a slight tweak to current brake lights could help warn people of heavy braking:
- Light brake pressure when mobile would show solid illuminated brake lights
- Light or heavy brake pressure when stationary would show solid illuminated brake lights
- Heavy braking when mobile would show strobe brake lights
What do you think? Would this improve the safety on motorway travel?
Please comment below.
Great idea! Maybe a secondary light that flashes red – you might blink and not see the flashing red.
No. This would be confusing.
Yeah I think Mercedes was doing something along these lines
a couple years back. Don’t know why it got canned though.
HELL yeah!!!
Some higher end vehicles (like Mercedes SUVs) momentarily
turn on the 4-way/hazard light when ABS is triggered, which is also
a good idea to me…maybe they could come on just under heavy
braking. I’ve also felt it would be nice if brake light brightness
were just proportional to how hard you pressed, up to the point it
strobes at threshold braking force.
I hate to break it to you but something like this is
already done in Mercedes, some Porsches, and some BMWs.
Kostas is easily confused, please excuse him.
Possible good idea. Although, you’d have to think about
those who have epilepsy!
Strongly disagree with Kostas. Strobing lights on the road
always mean one thing: “This is important, look here”. When it’s
coming from the brake lights of the car in front of you, the
meaning would be almost instantly clear: “I am stopping RIGHT NOW,
you might want to do the same.”
This is a great Idea, however this is too similar to
emergency vehicle lighting. Strobing should be for emergency
vehicles only.
I like the idea that the heavy breaking really gets your
attention. There have been times (We’ve all experienced it) where I
wasn’t fully paying attention in front of me and I had to brake
really hard to avoid and accident. The flashing lights really grab
your attention and give you a few more precious seconds of
braking.
This already exists. Not the graded part, but the flashing
part. Some cars already have brake lights that flash. Nearly
impossible to habituate to, so it’s safer as a signal.
and cause epileptic seizures in some…..causing more
braking from the ensuing accident…..then more seizures
Good idea. This would also help when we eventually develop
autonomous driving cars, they can pick up on the flashes very
easily.
What is communicated by brake lights being illuminated when
a car is standing still?
The car brake lights would behave in exactly the same way as nearly all modern car brake lights do at the moment. The only difference is the state change when the the brakes are applied hard at a speed of say, 50mph+. It’s at that point they would strobe.
I’m aware of some cars automatically activating the hazzard lights in these situtations but I feel this isn’t enough and not a clear indication of how the car is behaving.
BMW and Mercedes have developed similar systems, termed Adaptive Brake Lights.
eg: in the BMW 5 series “Available in the new 5 Series, Adaptive Brake Lights are designed to reduce the risk of bumper-to-bumper collisions by enlarging the brake light area when the driver forcefully applies the brakes.”.
ie. more brake lights come on in an emergency stop.
eg: in the Merceds B class: “… the B-Class features adaptive brake lights as standard: in the event of an emergency stop from a speed of more than 50 km/h, the brake lamps start flashing several times a second so as to warn any vehicles behind, thus shortening their stopping distance decisively. If the B-Class is braked to a halt from a speed of 70 km/h or more, the hazard warning lights are activated automatically, giving you an extra level of protection.”