This is stupid
How about reducing the brightness of headlights so I don’t feel like the sun is driving at me at night?
Also, if the car is in drive the headlights should go into auto mode. Always see people driving with just parking lights on at sundown.
Yes… WHY DO CARS STILL HAVE 2 SETTINGS LIKE ITS 1935. it would take basically zero effort to have low, high, stun for headlights so the rest of us who drive normal appropriate cars don’t have to be blinded by selfish assholes driving a massive truck alone by themselves that they never used for work once in their lives. Yes, im a car person and despise truck posers.
You say this like those same people won’t leave it on stun
There are now headlights that can be “high” but block out portions of the beam directed at light sources like oncoming headlights. Can’t have them in the US though.
Also known as the “fuck everyone not in a car”-setting
Higher up and brighter lights=driver can see more and feels safer. Yes, even if shadows and the area immediately arounds the car are less visible and the vehicle becomes more dangerous for everyone around you.
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Accidents aren’t isolated though, they will sort themselves out by hitting good drivers and people.
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Is love then to know when someone is slowing down to turn when I’m trying to pull out. So few use turn signals, and even those I don’t really trust until the car is noticably getting slower.
Turn signal or not, you shouldn’t be pulling out in front of them. You should be assuming they are turning into a driveway after the intersection, or that they mistook your intersection for the next one down the road, or that they left their turn signal on from a lane change 5 miles back.
Turn signals are lies until conclusively proven otherwise.
You’re right about turn signals.
A lot of people have “target fixation” and telegraph their moves somewhat. I look at where the car is tracking in the lane and what their head is doing (if I can see it). Most people drift left or right on the highway before they change lanes, exit, or turn. It’s no excuse for bad manners, but it helps.
Oh yea. I’ll watch the wheels, their head, and if I can see them reposition their hands, I’ll look for that.
I don’t trust anyone when I’m on the road.
I don’t trust anyone when I’m on the road.
And you shouldn’t. Everyone is equipped with a lethal weapon masquerading as personal transportation, where safety is predicated on mutually-assured-destruction and the presumption that everyone is a sane actor. Keep your head on a swivel and stay safe out there!
Some people don’t care about their cars at all. They will damage their own just to spite another driver.
I’ve driven big 30ft box trucks that are governed at 60mph and daily a 2 seater sports car. There is nothing worth fucking up my day just to win an argument on who gets to go first.
Same when crossing the street in front of a car. I don’t cross unless I have a crosswalk light or I make eye contact with the driver.
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I can’t trust a car even with its turn signal on unless I see it actually slow down because I see them misused too often. The lack of signalling though is the biggest problem. People who suddenly change lanes right in front of you without warning are the worst. Then you have people who force you to wait because they can’t be bothered to indicate if they are turning or going straight at intersections.
Also, don’t start signaling as you are turning. I see you turning so you are just indicating what I’m already seeing. Signal before you turn.
They would probably just use the existing amber lights so noone would know if you were turning or not. I’m not bitter.
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.
Last I heard something like 98% of new cars/trucks sold in America have automatic.
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.
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.
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’d rather see mandatory rear running lights. The amount of people who can’t be arsed to turn on their lights in bad visibility conditions is too damn high.
It used to be mandatory with always on rear lights in Sweden (you couldn’t even turn them off). But an adaptation to EU rules removed that requirement. 😓
I strongly doubt it was genuinely linked to that. There are EU countries where having lights on all the time is mandatory.
There was an EU rule about ten years ago that stipulated that rear lights are no longer mandatory in daylight. The reasoning being to save on fuel. Which is a ridiculous reason, even more so with today’s LED lights.
I don’t know about other EU countries but this was the reason that Sweden removed the requirement. All cars in Sweden used to have the rear lights turned on at all time, even if the light switch was in the off position, but that changed around the same time.
and on the opposite side don’t turn on your emergency lights while driving in bad weather. you’re only causing confusion by making it seem like you have turn signals on if i can’t see both blinkers.
The hazards also override your turn signals so I now have no idea when you are going to attempt lane change.
The hazards are to indicate you are stopped and now a hazard.
Only when you are stopped and now a hazard. Your car becomes a blinking light. We have road rules for blinking lights, so it SHOULD be saying one specific thing.
Thank you for coming to this road safety talk.
They also indicate slow moving road hazards like a semi carrying an oversized load
and honestly i have the same problem with that intended use. it often looks like a stopped car is attempting to turn out into traffic. IMO emergency lights should have a faster blink pattern or something to differentiate from turn signals.
Faster blink is already used to indicate that one of the lights is burned out. It’s a consequence of the mechanical part that operates (used to operate) the blinking; less resistance caused by a burned out light means it blinks faster
Thats more an issue of using the same lamp for rear lights and turn signal
Rear fog lights on all vehicles (some vehicles have them now).
it’s forbidden to use rear fog lights under rain (it’s more confusing than helpful)
if you live somewhere dry, that’s not a concern. But here it rains 1 day in 3
I don’t know where you are but rear fogs aren’t illegal in the rain here and from experience they are nothing but helpful in heavy rain and white out snow. I am always so so sooo glad when someone in front of me is using them when it’s absolutely pouring. You really have to not be paying attention not to notice that it’s two lights and not three and somehow mistake them for stop lights.
In fact, Transport Canada recommends using them in fog, rain, or snow.
Use only if driving in fog, rain or snow as these lights can be confused with stop lights, distracting other drivers.
II. - Le ou les feux arrière de brouillard ne peuvent être utilisés qu’en cas de brouillard ou de chute de neige. ☞ https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000006842263
Feux de brouillard arrière : ils sont indiqués uniquement en cas de brouillard ou de chute de neige (mais jamais sous la pluie en raison de leur trop grande intensité) ☞ https://public.codesrousseau.fr/conseils-pratiques/909-feux-de-brouillard-avant-et-arriere-quand-les-utiliser.html
Ça c’est de l’osti de merde comme on dit ici.
Yes that as well, I love mine and use them a lot. But that’s a step above rear running lights. There’s no god damn reasons the rear indicators shouldn’t be on all the time.
I’m salty because nobody took my front-blinker serious 😤 but we should embrace front brakes?! 😔
Whatever makes things more safe 🌞!
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Definitely make it easier for people on crosswalks to start walking. Knowing that they are slowing down.
In order to be most effective it would need to be dynamic rather than a fixed on/off like rear brake lights. Stopping doesn’t mean stopped. So perhaps a progressive light bar that starts lighting up at 20mph and adds a light for each 5mph drop until the whole bar is lit indicating a full stop. That would give pedestrians a sense of rate of deceleration.
This sure riled people up.
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
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.
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. Standard brake light stays lit while the second light begins blinking frantically for emergency braking.
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.
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.”
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
BMW has implemented this in the US market for the past 20 years or so at least. Under heavy braking, additional brake lights turn on. I believe they call that Brake Force Display. I’m sure they’re not the only manufacturer to do this, too
BMWs need a speeding indication more than a braking one /s
Haha, funny enough, some BMWs have a feature where the speedometer reads 5 MPH higher than actual vehicle speed. Probably to try cutting down on speeding
BMW should focus on making the turn signals work first.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 don’t understand this at all. Why do I, as a person in front of a vehicle, care whether or not it’s braking?
for example, say you are waiting to make a left turn, it would be nice to know if oncoming cars are braking or not. if they are stopped and you see their brake lights turning off, you can judge if you should hurry up or not turn at all.
Yeah, and then you have the distraction of people looking in the mirror because of lights behind them. Especially seeing lights behind you at night thinking it’s a police car
My main thoughts instantly come to someone in the opposing left turn lane, if they are not applying the brakes they are likely starting to turn and if they do it right in front of you, you have more of a heads up than just them starting to turn and can set yourself in a better position to hopefully stop in time. Driving is all about judgment calls and having more info quicker is important to those calls.
But isn’t that exactly the situation we’re in now? If there’s a car in the opposing left turn lane, they might start to turn in front of you.
The only thing the light does is say “right now, they’re braking”. It doesn’t say whether they’re moving or stationary any more than the headlights, and it doesn’t say anything about their intentions or whether it’s safe to enter the intersection.
The key detail is that, like with rear brake lights, they extinguish when the foot is removed from the brake pedal. So it’s not so much the presence of the brake light, but the presence of an inactive brake light that would, serve as a warning that a car is about to start moving. This would be very helpful to drivers on a road when other drivers are pulling out too early from a side road or driveway. That little bit of extra warning is, in many situations, enough for you to pump the brakes, hit the horn, or both.
If anything I think they would have to use a green light that turns on when accelerating/not braking. It would be way more dangerous in the future when people are trained with “No green = braking” but older cars don’t have the light at all.
It’s important to consider how a transition like this would even work. I personally think this is a little too drastic of a change, and is incompatible with existing vehicles and habits.I get what you’re saying — so it’s about the subconscious awareness of the state change that happens after the driver decided to go, but before the car starts moving. I can see some amount of value in that.
I still can’t help but think it’s going to be interpreted by many as a sign that it’s safe to proceed and ignore the car rather than be prepared for any eventuality, though.
Sounds like it can help oncoming traffic as well as traffic to either side of the vehicle
Yeah, the only thing I could think of is that I’m driving down a country road, and I see the front brake light ahead of me because someone stopped for a deer in the road or something.
Otherwise I cannot fathom what benefit it brings. Anything that ultimately becomes “if you see this light, it’s safe to [X] in front of this vehicle” is going to get people killed.
And the negative state of “the lack of this light means that the vehicle could be moving” is exactly what we have now.
Reading through the article, it seems like one scenario is that a vehicle stopped at an intersection might be about to pull out, endangering another vehicle about to cross? It seems like the thinking is, if you notice a front/side brake light stops being lit as you approach the intersection, it might indicate they’re about to accelerate - be cautious!
I’m not fully convinced either, it seems like a lot of the benefit they’re projecting is based on analysis of historical collisions, rather than any kind of experimental results. It sounds like the study is to justify expanding research to that sort of simulated experimentation, though - I’m curious what that kind of testing would find.
Say you’re a pedestrian and a car is coming toward you as you’re entering a crosswalk. Being able to see if they are braking or not could save your life.
If a car is braking it rides differently from one that isn’t. A car is normally rather level and leans “forward” when braking.
Besides that, YOU SHOULDNT GET IN FRONT OF ANYTHING YOU ARENT SURE IS STOPPING. If it’s moving fast enough that you need this, you shouldn’t be trying to get in front anyways.
For normal people, yes. This is to prevent accidents.
Again, if you’re too stupid to make sure the multiton hunk of metal is coming to a stop by all the other obvious visual markers, including watching it’s speed compared to stationary objects like signs and lamp posts, then this won’t do shit. People need more aweness of their surroundings, not a bunch of lights and horns because people won’t pay attention.
You enter the road when it’s safe, not jump in and play frogger with lights hoping to get across.
Yup, this is a moronic idea.
YOU SHOULDNT GET IN FRONT OF ANYTHING YOU ARENT SURE IS STOPPING
This, exactly. This “plan” sounds terrible to me.
No, I’m not braking to turn at the intersection you’re sitting in. I’m turning into a driveway just past that intersection. If you pull in front of the green light the government says I have to have on my vehicle, I’m going to t-bone you.
Ah. I see. They are emitting a green light, so I know they’re braking, and it’s OK to cross.
But, it turns out that they’re planning on turning into a driveway past the intersection, and not into the intersection I am crossing.
That’s OK. I can check “impersonate a hood ornament” off my bucket list.
We already have this problem with turn signals: there are circumstances where it would be confusing and dangerous to use them in the manner prescribed by law, and to avoid dangerous ambiguity, they should actually be used much later than the law specifies.
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.
Might as well ignore all attainable goals that would benefit society in the short term in favor of sci-fi pipe dreams that are perpetually delayed as we endlessly run into stumbling blocks.
Forget solar/wind/geothermal/etc. development as well, fusion power could happen any day now so why bother with any of that comparatively inefficient junk?
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 combined indicator/brake light thing you guys do is fucking stupid, so there’s a precedent.
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.
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.
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.
