I don't know if this sounds like a good idea or a waste of time...

...but when I'm driving on a highway or something, I hate when the person in front of me, even if they're 6 car lengths ahead of me, taps on their brake pedel so the brake lights go on but they hardly slow down. After 10 minutes of this (actually happened to me yesterday), they slammed on their brakes and caught me completely off guard, didn't hit him, just scared the daylights out of me.

For the past few years, I've thought it would be a good idea to have multiple brake lights; one bulb would turn on for tapping the brakes, two for more brake pressure, and three for slamming on the brakes, or something along those lines. Basically to give you an idea whether the person's just slowing down a bit or if they see an accident ahead that you can't and is slamming on their brakes.

Maybe its just me, I know I don't have great depth perception, but still have good vision (played football pop warner to college and many other sports). From the time I got my license (5.5 yrs ago), I've gotten into two small accidents, both resulted in no damage and both people just told me to forget about it, and both times were in stop and go traffic with quick increases in speed then a high rate of deacceleration. And if I had known they were slamming on the brakes, I know I wouldn't have even come close to hitting them...

Yeah, I guess the downside would be yet more crap in cars that could go wrong and cost more money, but if we can have a GPS unit in a car or all that other useless junk('climate control', heated seats, dvd players), cant we have this? I think it seems like a simple enough safety feature, what do you think?

 

I totally agree. I actually thought of this a few years ago while sitting behind some jerk with one foot on the brake and the other on the gas. I couldn't tell whether he was stopping or not.

 

I seem to recall a concept car from back in the late 'seventies (I'm no "spring chicken" I reckon...) that had lights across the back of the roofline in green, yellow, and red. Green for accelerating, yellow for steady speed, and red for brakes. This was waaay before today's "third brakelight".

Your thought sounds like a good idea to me. I imagine most of us have been in similar situations. I know I have. Even though, technically, it is the responsiblity of the driver that is following to be aware, allow room, and EXPECT the idiot to slam the brake suddenly.

Still a good idea though!!

 

I remember that concept, too!

 

I think requiring LED brakelights would be a start. They light up something like 100ms quicker than standard incandescent bulbs, giving the following vehicle more reaction time.

The problem I see is that you could conceivably stop on a highway (let's say stopped waiting to make a left turn off a two-lane highway) under light brake pressure. That means that those lights would be at their dimmest level, making them more difficult to see to a car approaching at full speed. Right now, I believe the federal standard is for brake lights to be visible at 500' in sunlight. And like you said, it's one more (complicated) system...how many cars have you seen driving around with 1 of 3 taillights working (much simpler system)? Not that it's a bad idea, I just think it would fall under the category of "difficult to implement".

Jason

 

I think requiring LED brakelights would be a start. They light up something like 100ms quicker than standard incandescent bulbs, giving the following vehicle more reaction time.

I think its a requirement, or they just make them this way, to have the brake light go on before brake pressure builds, so I don't think the speed should be a problem, but, regardless, I think LEDs might be a good idea if they're cheap enough

That means that those lights would be at their dimmest level, making them more difficult to see to a car approaching at full speed.

Yeah, thats a good point, but the way I was thinking was having different bulbs (or LEDS) at the same brightness, since when you turn your head lights on, the tail lights come on anyways, a dimming brake light would be 'competing' with it. I imaged having a slightly wider brake light with three columns

And like you said, it's one more (complicated) system...how many cars have you seen driving around with 1 of 3 taillights working (much simpler system)? Not that it's a bad idea, I just think it would fall under the category of "difficult to implement".

Yeah, thats what I'm figuring, I'm sure its been on the drawing board before only to be scraped for obvious reasons. But if LEDs are used, I'd bet it be much more reliable, not to mention provide better visibility. I've read about guys with sport bikes changing over to LEDs for safetly reasons...

 

BMW already has it. They call them "adaptive brake lights".

 

yep... looks like its already been patented and discussed many times over

http://www.shouldexist.org/story/2000/6/29/153314/280

 

I seem to remember in the late 70's and early 80's a staged brake lighting system whereby the lights would flash very rapidly and brightly under hard stop conditions. I don't remember what brand vehicle had them but I could swear I remember seeing them in use around the Pittsburgh, PA area in the late 70's.

 

I seem to remember reading somewhere that an "expert" had said it was not a good idea because the time it takes to figure out what the various lights mean is too long. I don't remember the specifics, but that was the idea of it.

 

Maybe some sort of two stage system for hard stopping that activates a back-off modulator like you see on some motorcycles.

 

Maybe just a "highway help" number to report those "left foot brake people" would help. It doesn't do much good to have brake lights if they flash on and off all the time. It does not even do any good to back off from them because someone else just pulls into the space, then they back off or slam on their brakes... They are a traffic hazard.

LED lights are a good idea also but they would not help much with the LFBP's except to help with bulb burnout.