By signaling to oncoming traffic and vehicles approaching from the side, a front brake light provides an essential visual cue that a car is slowing down or preparing to stop. When the light is extinguished, it indicates that a stationary vehicle might initiate movement. According to Tomasch, this visual feedback can significantly truncate the reaction time for other road users, leading to shorter stopping distances and consequently diminishing the likelihood of accidents.
Sounds reasonable. Personally I just want front turn signals to be visible from the opposite side again.
Personally I just want front turn signals to be visible from the opposite side again
Not sure if I read that correctly, but I don’t think this has ever been the case?
I mean when a car is coming at me from a cross street, I want to be able to tell if they’re turning or just an asshole not using their signal. On some cars, the turn signal is mounted so far to the side that if they’re approaching from my right and turning right onto the same street as me, I can’t see that turn signal. Sometimes combined with the roundness of the nose exacerbating the problem.
Theres a saying in computer stuff that applies nicely here. PEBKAC, problem exists between keyboard and computer…turn signals have to be turned on, no amount of engineering can fix bad driving.
Heads up, it’s actually keyboard and chair, not keyboard and computer
Dang it, sometimes I just type stuff and dont think about what I typed (the irony of what I was writing out)
I’ve actually always found it weird with all the automation vehicles have, that blinkers aren’t linked to the wheel. it already automatically disengages when turning, it shouldn’t be too hard to have it auto engage as well when turning
The thing is, you want the turn signal to turn on before the start of the turn, so other drivers, pedestrians, cyclists can react.
I cannot stand how in some vehicles if I turn on the signal to indicate I am planning to change lanes, it will beep at me that there is a car there. I’m indicating I plan on it. Not that I’m turning the wheel right this second. I know there is a car to my side, I’m going to change lanes behind it, but am indicating mostly to the car behind them.
agreed, I don’t think the blinker switch should be removed, but a late indicator is better than no indicator.
How would that work? On the highway, a slight nudge on a straight means you’ll cross a lane, meaning turn signals on.
A kilometer later, the exact same slight nudge could mean it’s just a light turn in the road, meaning signals off.
Now you could mandate cameras in all vehicles, which analyze your driving and turn on the turn signals when it thinks you’re making a turn. Now who’s responsible in a false positive if someone else dodges you and crashes because you suddenly turned on the signals without turning? Except it wasn’t you, but your car. Oh and also you made entry level cars 10k more expensive, making them way more inaccessible if you aren’t rich.
it wouldn’t indicate for slight turns only standard turns. Normal turns on the road may engage it but It’s meant as a “hey this person is actively turning” or as a “this cars wheel is turned that way” so you know the direction it will go if it started moving
but honestly even if it did, it isn’t hard to see “oh that car is on a curve obviously it’s not turning”
How would you do that so it isn’t ugly as hell and isn’t prone to misunderstanding?
sliding light or arrows
How would that work? If you look from the side you suddenly don’t see anything again, or an arrow point forwards or backwards?
If you look from the front, current turn signals work for that already.
sliding lights: it depends on the bulb but i imagine it would easy to see move
arrows: i dont know why you think they would point fowards or backwards they would just towards the side youre on or not
If you’re looking at the side of the car, you don’t see them the same way as from the front. Which this whole discussion is about.
If you can see both turn signals from your point of view, current design works well enough.
i found a video to help you picture it better (https://youtube.com/shorts/ZD_34DxW_uI)
it really isnt that difficult
I know how flow lights work. But they still don’t help you see better that a car is turning away from you, which is what this discussion is about.
Imagine a crossroad where a car is coming from your right side. You have no way of knowing whether they turn right or go straight, regardless of the way the lights work, because you won’t see them.
How would you do that so it isn’t ugly as hell
same way we do with lights now, design them attractively. It is not always successful and that’s on the manufacturers.
and isn’t prone to misunderstanding?
what about it is confusing? green = not coming at you so it’s okay to turn left (or whatever).
I’ve seen newer cars turn the headlight off while the turn indicator is on, so you get a sort of double-blink effect.
I don’t see any reason why we can’t just have the whole headlight blink yellow as well with the turn indicator. LEDs are everywhere and can handle changing colors really easily, so it’s not hard to require that for all new cars.
I’ve seen newer cars turn the headlight off while the turn indicator is on, so you get a sort of double-blink effect
Those are typically DRLs. Chrysler did this for a while in the 2000s-2010s (maybe still, idk), where the high beam - in DRL mode - turns off while the turn signal is doing it’s thing. Other manufacturers do this with dedicated DRLs, sometimes integrating the DRLs and turn signals into one multicolored unit (Kia Telluride, for example).
No manufacturer shuts off a headlight for a turn signal when the headlights are intentionally turned on (whether by light sensors at night, or by the driver).
Absolutely, but that doesn’t solve the problem that’s talked about here (seeing the turn signal from the other side of the vehicle). It might be clearer what the turn signal is, but if you look at the right side of a vehicle, you won’t be able to see the left headlight, even when it’s massive.
When am I ever looking at the side and needing to see the other side’s turn signal? The best I can think of is (using right side driving) a car turning right into my lane of travel as I’m going straight, but I’ll be a bit offset to the left and should be able to see the right headlight. If I can’t, that means the car is angled to the right, making it obvious that they’re turning.
Because this is what the discussion is about?
Personally I just want front turn signals to be visible from the opposite side again.
And I’m saying I can see them most of the time, and when I can’t, I don’t need to because their intention is obvious.
< and > for turns. X for brakes.
Honestly, we should focus on functionality rather than aesthetic.
That doesn’t answer the question. The question is how you would design it so you can look at the left side of a car, know that it’s turning right and isn’t prone to misunderstandings.
Up and down arrows? Up is away from you and down is towards you.
So it sounds like you’re checking to see when the light turns off, to know that the car is going.
Sounds like what we actually need is a green accelerator light on the front of the car.
Not selling tanks as cars could also help. Especially with fatality rates
People don’t even need car tbh. Motorbikes everywhere please. Zip zip, less traffic, everyone pays attention to road or falls and dies.
I live in Maine. Riding a motorcycle in the winter is not only highly unpleasant, it’s borderline suicidal.
I’m all for 2 wheeled transport where it works, but anywhere that gets snow for months out of each year it’s a non starter as a primary transportation mode
This might be the dumbest comment I have ever read on the Internet. That’s like 30 years of comments.
Maybe redo the driving test like… At least every 20 years? There are people on the roads who got their licenses when their town didn’t even had traffic lights. People who never saw a roundabout in their first 20 years of driving.
Its nice that we restrict young people by making them take more and more driving lessons and paying more for tiered licences, like we do in Europe for motorcycles and trucks.
But maybe also take a look at the 70+ year old grandpa who had two strokes and one heart attack, has two pairs of of glasses but his license says that he’s perfectly fit.
Sometimes you see those videos from a dash cam of a truck that hits a bridge, obviously the truck driver was been being inattentive but often so was the recording cars driver. All I can ever think is, “why were you so close behind, it was blindingly obvious that was about to happen”, yet to them apparently it wasn’t, and now they’ve got bits of truck roof in their windscreen.
There was an astounding number of people who really cannot drive, and yet they think they’re driving safely. They just haven’t gotten a crash yet.
Because it wasn’t blindingly obvious? I don’t know how tall the truck in front of me is, and since I don’t drive tall vehicles I know even less about the heights of bridges. Usually commercial drivers are the better ones.
Well the thing that made it blindingly obvious was that it was a 30 second video of a tall truck driving full tilt toward a low bridge, so obviously something was about to happen!
If we limited drivers permits to the 8% or so of drivers who are actually competent we’d solve a lot of problems in several domains.
I self-selected as ineligible to drive years ago, and I’ve never regretted it. Of course I had to move away from my home country and learn a new language, but those are the shakes.
Reading all such things I’m starting to think “what if I can drive?” I’ve always thought I can’t, but since everyone around who thinks they can drive like suicide bombers, maybe I should find those driving lessons.
Define safe? If everyone drives safely enough that you are more likely to die of suicide than an automobile accident, is that safe enough?
That is a weird question.
How do you calculate odds of dying by suicide anyway, wouldn’t they be personal?
The U.S. death rate is about 750 / 100,000 overall, with about 14.1 of those 750 declared suicide (you can never really know, but the suspected actual suicide rate is a bit higher, to preserve insurance benefits…)
The current US death rate by automobile accident is around 13.4 per 100,000 - so, by those statistics, people are already slightly more likely to take their own lives by choice than they are to die in an auto accident.
Of course if you choose to walk, you’re not entirely safe, the US pedestrian death rate is around 2 per 100,000, and that’s with most people driving everywhere most of the time.
Another fun way to look at the end is lifetime odds:
Death by suicide: 1/87 Death by automobile accident: 1/93 (which seems to indicate in itself that deaths by auto accident are expected to decline, or perhaps have recently increased slightly?) Death by firearm (US): 1/91 Suicide by firearm (US): 1/156
Next time you’re driving on a 2 lane highway at speed, oncoming cars approaching at a relative velocity of 100mph and more (50 in your direction 50 in theirs…) count oncoming cars. When you get to 87, odds are that one of those drivers will ultimately die by suicide… there’s a little solace in the fact that most of them won’t be doing it by swerving into oncoming traffic, and the bigger relief is that most of those that do, won’t be doing it at that particular moment just before you pass.
As for guns - that’s a whole different mess, but interesting that the numbers are so close.
Fatal motor vehicle accidents are just over 865000 times more common than commercial air travel accidents, but until dash cams we never got to see them, so people think it can’t happen to them, when it’s slightly worse than even odds.
IMO, the big problem is just a matter of standards and practicality. The bar for a DL is “can operate a vehicle” and not “can safely drive a vehicle in public for extended periods of time.” I agree with periodic re-licensing though; everything else called a “license” seems to need that for a host of reasons.
At least give them some new info like now it’s legal to go the wrong way on a bike if the speed limit is 30 km/h where I live. Guess not a lot of people know about that and a gazillion other things.
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I see too many people treat a roundabout like a stop sign when it is clearly empty.
The couple of times they tried out roundabouts in my area, they didn’t last long because people were too stupid to figure out how to use them. So instead they just bitched until they were taken out.
I always say there are drivers out there who only survive by the grace of other drivers.
Sure but the second I lose my mobility I will put a deer slug through my head.
So risking everyone else’s life around you is worth it?
It isn’t a negociation. If some bureaucrat ticks that box, it will just be the end.
Another kind of solution. But not needed.
Why not move to a place where low mobility doesn’t cut you off from the rest of society?
There’s plenty of retirement communities where you can get around with a golf cart. In the 3 biggest cities here in SK, old folk can ride the subways for free, and sometimes you even see them drive mobility scooters on.
Other places I’ve been have level boarding for buses, but I’ve never seen someone drive a mobility scooter onto one. Certainly it wouldn’t fly in SK.
I don’t think I could afford to be homeless in SK.
No, being in poverty is really bad here, but I just picked SK out as a close example, old folk becoming recluses who only interact with Fox News and people serving them is pretty specific to American and/or car-centric culture. Hell even car-centric parts of america have retirement communities where they all drive scooters or golf cars.
Well in any case I’m here and not there and when that happens there won’t be money to go to some magical car free place. We have winter here and the groceries are 20 km away. There is no bus, no taxi and not even uber. Not that I would have the 60 bucks a ride would cost. Of course I would also lose my job which 60km away.
So deer slug to the brain will be the prescription.
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.
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
There’s a programmable flasher relay that does exactly this. It’s specific to certain Toyota/Lexus and Subarus from the 2000s to mid-2010s, but it’s something. I have one in my 2008 Sienna - the “emergency flasher” part is programmed to strobe, kinda like a tow truck. I like it.
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.
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
Well yes they will, but at least it’s an option . Also a lot of vehicles have auto dimming now but they don’t work well and don’t last more than 6 years before the sensors get borked
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.
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
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.
Flashing blue would be neat.
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
‘Here’s an idea: let all those around you know your status.’
‘Revolutionary!’
It’s weird we haven’t already done this, but good.
My status is in a relationship
Don’t get any ideas buddy
How do I set my car’s status to “It’s complicated”?
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.
Wouldn’t better driving education and testing work just as well, if not better?
Shut up nerd
as with a lot of tests, the thing a driving test is the best at measuring is how well you can take a driving test.
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?
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.
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.
I agree that that would be a real danger, yes.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Id 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.
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.
The crosswalk light might help in the lawsuit after you are seriously injured or killed, if anyone submits video evidence at the trial.
That’s actually another good use, a kind of passive turn signal - though if they’re really turning you should be able to notice their reduced speed without a light - and drivers who start depending on the front brake light to read intent to turn might actually have more accidents instead of less.
Just yesterday I watched a car pull out into an intersection less than one car-length in front of a car driving straight through the intersection, slowly. I can’t know what they were thinking, but I would guess they assumed that the slow car going straight was about to turn, then they quit paying attention and pulled out just in time for the collision to be un-avoidable.
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.
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.
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.
This sure riled people up.
