Is there a reason why cars don’t have break lights in the front as well as in the back? The way cars have turn signals on the front and back.
The one main reason I can see for having them is when making a left turn on a yellow. Its tough to know if the traffic is going to stop or gun it, but if you could see break lights you’d know they were slowing down. I had another reason but I can’t remember it at the moment.
Possibly when merging into traffic or changing lanes, again you’d know if the person is going to gun it past you or slow down to let you in.
It would be very cheap to do, since the lights are already in the car. Unlike the stupid third tail light that’s been forced upon us.
Many lives would be saved, since you would be able to tell whether the drunk approaching the insection is applying the brakes. If not, you’d know to stay put.
Unfortunately, unlike expensive hoaxes like airbags, there’s not a lot of money to be made on this.
I suspect that it would give people a false sense of reality.
You may see the brake light come on and figure the person is stopping, when in reality, theyre just covering the peddle because they think youre not stopping. Or if someone is coming up behind you and you dont see the brake light come on you may think they are about to rear-end you so you dash out into the intersection and cause an accident. In the left turn situation, you may see the front brake light come on and then pull out only to have that person chage their mind and gun it at the exact same time youre pulling out. I see problems.
Best to leave it up to your better judgement and depth perception.
I`ve been in situations where I wished the person about to rear-end me had brake lights on the front of their car so I could at least brace for the impact, or try to avoid it.
It wouldn’t be safe to assume the car coming at you is going to stop. You’re waiting to turn, you see the front brake light, assume the car is stopping, start turning, the other car guns it, bang, crash, bloody carnage.
It’s better to just treat every car as though it is not going stop.
Another way to look at it is: When you’re behind a car, that car stopping is dangerous and you need to be alerted to it. When you are in front of a car, that car stopping is not dangerous and there is no need to alert you to it.
Brakelights on the front of vehicles would become dangerously confusing at night time. You see one headlight and a breaklight ahead. Is it a motorcycle approaching in the next lane over and a car in your lane with its other breaklight out, or is it a car coming at you with a headlight out? Is that the back of a car you’re pulling up to, or the front of some drunk that forgot to turn on his headlights?
Also, as another poster suggested, just because the driver has his brake on, it doesn’t mean he plans to stop. I’ve watched folks ride their brake on the highway and maintain a speed of 60mph.
What we really need is computerized cars to do the driving for us. They can communicate with a central traffic system to determine efficient routes, coordinate intersection traffic, avoid crashes, etc.
Of course, such a system would never happen. Even if it only resulted in 1000 crashes a year (a very small percentage of the deaths currently in the US), people would call such a system “dangerous” and insist “If I’m going to die in a car accident, I want it to be MY fault, not some computer glitch.”
Awsome, I was going to say that, but I thought I`d get laughed out of here. I think Two stages would be perfect - one for normal brake and one for “lock up the tires” which would be twice as bright.
YES! I’ve seen traffic flow disrupted by a driver with an automatic transmission who keeps his left foot resting lightly on the brake pedal, just enough to make the brake lights come on. Variable lights would reduce that problem. And the extreme brightness produced by a panic stop would certainly cut down on the number of rear-end collisions.
The center third brake light has caused a problem unforseen in at the time it was imposed. Once the population became used to seeing the 3rd brakelight, the easiest way to differenciate between brakelights and regular nighttime taillights became counting 2 or 3 points of light. Older cars without the center light don’t immediately register as braking unless the following driver happens to see the change of intensity.
A more effective change would have required the addition of a clause requiring that all cars be retrofitted once the proportion of equiped to unequiped cars reaches a certain point.
Also, a national requirement for vehicle inspections. States such as FL have no inspections whatsoever. Also, checks such as bumper height (too many hick-mobiles with bumpers several feet higher than the stock bumper height) and headlight allignment (or at least functioning bulbs!) should be required.
ive seen cars with progressive brakelights before, custom jobs yes, but a few are out there. I think i also saw some kind of concept suburban back in the 80s that had them… not so sure though
they have brakelights that strobe… led replacement bulbs that go BLINK-BLINK-ON everytime you hit the brake to get peoples attention… i think they market them to motorcycles…
The whole idea behind the third brake light is that people aren’t paying enough attention to the two BIG RED LIGHTS already on the back of the car. Sure enough, when the third light came out, there were less rear end collisions. But once everyone gets used to them, it’s just another red light on the back of the car. It doesn’t do any more good than the two that are already there.
So what’s next? Do we keep adding more lights as people get used to them? I’m picturing the year 2050 model cars with the entire back surface of the car being one big freakin brake light.
In Japan, large trucks have on the front, not brake lights, but “go” lights. Mounted above the cab like clearance lights in the US – except they’re larger and green instead of yellow – one is supposed to come on at 30 kph, the second at 45, and the third at 60, IIRC. They often didn’t work, though.