Because the brake light indicates braking, and is connected to the brake? This is already a perfect solution.
An accelerometer is a terrible idea to replace this. You would have to cover the car with sensors and tune them so that accelerating uphill doesn’t trigger the brake light, and that braking downhill will successfully trigger the brake light.
It’s not a perfect solution for EVs and Hybrids that can slow down quickly without pressing the brake. Technology connections has a full video on the matter, but basically things need to be updated for current tech if we want to avoid accidents due to information not being relayed to other drivers.
There are EVs that handle this by using a deceleration threshold, but that is not the same as just strapping an accelerometer to a car.
Because deceleration is not braking and conflating the two is extremely dangerous.
Think for more than 2 seconds plz
I am honestly flabbergasted that people think this is a good idea. This would basically mean that the brake light would stay on almost all the time that you weren’t actively accelerating.
There would be so many more highway accidents. I heavily rely on the brake lights of the cars in front of me to drive defensively. They tell me when I should expect to put my brake on.
If brake lights turn on just because some took their foot off the gas, I can’t tell the difference between a gradual slowdown and an intent to stop, so it would make it way more likely that I wouldn’t brake in time to avoid a collision in a sudden stop of traffic.
Brake lights should only ever indicate that a driver has their foot on the brake. I absolutely must have this information delivered to me reliably. If the meaning of brake lights changed as recommended here, I would be legitimately scared of highway driving.
This would basically mean that the brake light would stay on almost all the time that you weren’t actively accelerating.
As I understand the idea of “single pedal operation”, taking your foot off the accelerator pedal initiates regenerative braking. If your foot is not on the accelerator, you are braking, and the brake lights should be illuminated. But the brake lights are normally controlled by the brake pedal. You are braking without touching that brake pedal; the lights will not come on.
OP is trying to solve that.
I suppose the main bulk of people misinterpreting op is due to how most people don’t think of EVs as the default and as someone who lives in a part of the US where EVs are pretty rare I assumed Regen braking was activated by pressing the brakes but hey I guess that goes to show my lack of ev experience and motivation to think about how driving one works due to how rarely I come across them and have the opportunity to even consider buying one
The issue is with regenerative braking and single pedal operation of EVs. Many vehicles today will essentially brake if you aren’t on the accelerator.
Personally, I think it’s a gap in design/regulation. But not as simple as brake pedals.
Have you ever been behind a car with a driver that has one foot on the brakes and the other on the gas. It seems to resemble the effect you are looking for and incredibly distracting and annoying. When brake lights go on you expect them to be making a stop or rapid deceleration so you do the same as well as the people behind you and all of the sudden you are speeding up, slowing down, back and forth. It’s becomes a terrible way to drive. The reason we have 2 eyes is to be able to judge these things and it works fine if you aren’t driving distracted.
Some EVs and hybrids have a ‘one foot driving’ mode where if you take your foot off the gas, it does start to actively brake and you will eventually come to a complete stop. Technology Connections did a video on it a little while back, showing how it can be bad if the brake lights aren’t programmed to come on in this situation.
Most have KERS. This is what it is. My brake lights go on when it hits a certain % of KERS full effect.
What if you don’t have 2 eyes?
3 eyes works just as well.
Standardised is a funny word, a car manufacturer doesn’t standardise. Laws and 3rd parties like ANCAP do.
When they need to do it to sell it with certain safety requirements, they will.
However, even if those happen, and car makers today start building them with that, it’ll take a decade or longer before you’ll start seeing them in majority on the road. So even if you lobby for it, expect time since I’d say less than half of all people buy new cars, so it’s not until the second hand market sees it will it be commonplace.
Right now the second hand market is starting to see things like collision avoidance systems and they will often flash brake lights when emergency braking on behalf of the driver.
Ok i’ll bite. Because why? How can you decelrate quickly enough to need to notify the driver behind you without braking?
EVs have regenerative braking, where when you let off the accelerator, it immediately starts slowing down, quickly. But the brake lights don’t come on. This would make driving behind EVs safer.
Perhaps when EVs use regenerative braking, they should display their brake lights. Use brakes, show brake lights, same rule as before just enforce it.
Perhaps when EVs use regenerative braking, they should display their brake lights. Use brakes, show brake lights, same rule as before just enforce it.
Agreed.
Engine or regenerative braking can very quickly slow down a vehicle but may not activate the brake lights depending on the manufacturer.
Or crashing, I guess.
I would like to share this with you: https://youtu.be/U0YW7x9U5TQ
Jake brakes in big trucks, but most of them do show brake lights now even though you just coast to activate them. Some drivers like to turn them off because it makes you look like a dangerous rookie in the mountains if your brake lights are on consistently while going downhill.
Other than regen braking like everyone said (which really slows down a car almost effectively as brakes when set to the highest regen setting; look up “one pedal driving”), you can also slow down a car quite rapidly in a manual transmission if you skip a gear or two when downshifting. No brake lights come on when you do this, and honestly I think that they should.
Old auto trannys didn’t have a bypass. You dropped to first some obeyed
This is probably country/region specific but my car (Tesla) illuminates the brake lights when it detects a certain level of deceleration. Also my work vehicles (Volvo V90 CrossCountry and XC60) do this. Finland/Sweden in my case. My car also flash the hazards when it detects hard braking and I’ve seen quite many euro cars do this. I agree that this should be standard.
Activating the hazards when hard breaking is also just common practice to do manually (at least in western Europe)
That’s a fairly complicated system to replace what is just an ultra simple switch at the pedal. The latter is even pretty likely to last the life of the car.
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The problem is with electric cars that can be driven with one pedal most of the time
I was thinking about this last time I drove an ev (ioniq 5). It will really decelerate quite hard when you lift off, and it’s configurable by the driver.
I don’t think they need to do it with an accelerometer, but if the regeneration system is applying more braking force than it would take to turn on the light with the brake pedal, it should turn the light on.
Either that or they should require the brake pedal to be used beyond that point.
Edit: actually it just occurred to me that it might be no worse than downshifting in a normal car. Maybe it’s not a big deal.
The i5 does turn on the brake lights when you use regen modes. They did have a firmware update to make the logic a bit better earlier this year though.
An accelerometer isn’t a good idea; but if the car’s systems are responding to a command from the driver to slow down, be that a press of the brake pedal, lifting off the accelerator in a car designed for 1-foot driving, etc. it should illuminate the stop lamps.
Most EVs do put on the brake lights when you lift off the pedal and the regen system kicks in.
Declaration can happen through a variety of means. Simply not accelerating would be the first one, due to friction. But even steadily accelerating on an upward slope would decrease the vehicle’s speed, and you don’t want to give vehicles behind the idea that a stop is being initiated.
You’ve spelled out the entire problem but have come to incorrect conclusions. If you’re directly behind a car, it becomes hard to sense acceleration or deceleration of other vehicles. More importantly, the brake is often used to decelerate on highways and not initiate a stop. This all leads to a lot of confusion and ultimately crashes every year.
The situations you mentioned are exactly the problem areas. Not accelerating it slowing down, often quite quickly, to make an exit. Dangerous. Going up a slope may or may not change speed, which needs to be known. Again dangerous. Same with downhill which is actually more dangerous not knowing how hard braking is happening.
So we have the technology to fix this. We can invent either variable break lights that change brightness or zoned lights that tell you “I’m slowing down” versus “I’m braking hard”. We could fix this because cars are dangerous enough as is
There is a Technology Connections video about this xD:
Between XKCD and Alec, the whole of human knowledge’s pretty much covered.
Technology Connections on YT has. Awhile rant about this. https://youtu.be/U0YW7x9U5TQ?si=SZaEzNCDKoLXhx83
A rant? Alec? Surely, you jest.
There’s a reason race vehicles don’t have brake lignts.
F1 and NASCAR don’t. Plenty of other race vehicles do, LeMans for example.
A related tangent is now that there are so many distracted drivers, engine braking in a standard can become hazardous. I often will tap my foot on the brake so the people behind will register that my speed is decreasing.
Similarly, even though most cars with cruise control have a cancel button, I always cancel via a gentle tap of the brake pedal instead. Quick flash of the brake lights to let people know I’m about to slow down.
I beleive that should be common practice when down shifting to slow because it’s not much different from braking without any brake lights. However, I’ve come to also trigger the lights even when coasting down in top gear. The slightly harder engine braking in a manual, even in top gear, combined with the increase of distractions, has me concerned about the same thing as you.
I would like if cars would somehow indicate how strong they are braking. Like a meter filling, the light starting to blink after a certain threshold and blinking faster etc.
The brake light means “pay attention to this car”.
Determining how much deceleration it’s experiencing is for the driver’s depth perception.
So instead of the message being “I’m slowing down by X amount here, so match that”,
the message is “I’m braking, so initiate the procedure by which you determine then match my X deceleration”
Yeah, but often you don’t know how much braking is applied. I’m sure that my idea is wishful thinking and would show some other negatives.
Another idea I just had is, that maybe, in a connected car future, cars will just share their data about how much they are braking automatically live to surrounding cars, so a car behind can react automatically as well.
Unless you are right on the other car’s bumper, you should have plenty of time to react accordingly even if they just slow down.
Yes of course. I’m thinking about driving on the highway and being in a close to traffic jam for example.
As someone who likes moving parts on cars like pop ups that would be so sick hell I’ve even fantasized about pop up tail lights that do basically this
Some newer higher end models do this. It’s an emergency brake feature that flashes the brake lights rapidly when braking heavily.
Should be standardized or something similar should be
I personally think cars should have two brake light switches. one for when you’re pressing the pedal at all, and one for when you’re slamming on the pedal.
that way the people behind you know if you’re just slowing down a little or actually braking.
Actually, a least some cars (probably more than you think)/have some sort of “emergency” breaking signal, which often result in the usual breaking signal blinking for a while. You need to seriously slam the brakes to see it though. E.g: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j_osu1WgGMU
There is also a nice technology connection video talking about braking lights for electric cars and in general, which can be dangerous.
I’ve seen some people play with the programming of BMWs. I was really impressed with one I saw that had 3 levels of lighting. It didn’t affect the actual brake lights but instead utilized the rear fog light. Normal braking was just the normal lights. Moderate braking turned on the rear fog lights. But when he slammed the brakes, the rear fogs flashed.
I was also pissed to be in traffic that allowed for all 3 modes in a few miles.
if you have an adequate following distance you never need to brake hard
That’s frequently not the choice of the driver. An adequate follow distance provides a luxurious amount of space for someone to merge into, forcing you to slow to extend the follow distance, which allows more people to merge… etc.
nope
… What?
There is no situation when one is obligated to tailgate
Most modern cars now put the hazards on automatically when the driver brakes hard.
Source? I have never seen a single car that does this.
It’s a fact.
I’m a truck driver in Germany, and even my Volvo truck turns the hazards on under hard braking.
In Europe it is required for vehicles decelerating faster than 6m/s2 and I believe some vehicles might activate their fog tail lights too.
I don’t know what the system is called but it’s been around on a lot of cars for a while now. Our car does it (2016 Nissan Qashqai) - the hazards came on automatically when I had to brake hard on the motorway, and everyone else’s hazards came on too - it was exactly the reason I knew how I knew I had to instantly brake hard due to all the cars ahead hazard lights coming on with the brake lights.
First time surprised me my because I didn’t know the car had the feature. Slammed the brakes harder than normal and hazards flashed at double time. Driving a 2010 Alfa Romeo 159.
I try (if I have time myself to do it without hitting someone and am just in front a mess) to “wake people up” a bit by rapidly tapping the brakes before hitting them hard (to hopefully make my brake lights flash).
You can buy special brake light kits to do this automatically.
I feel like I looked into that once upon a time and it was illegal in my state (Ohio).
I have seen something like that though, at times it’s a bit too much IMO. I’ve seen some that trigger for pretty gentle braking so there’s just a strobe light distraction in front of you over relatively minor things.
Two colors, amber for slowing, red for hard braking.
I always figured red and red strobing would make sense, since amber is used for turn signals. Not sure if that would fly for epilepsy and such though, but there are plenty of other bright flashy/flickery lights when driving as it is.
I thought the same thing about blinkers and turning the wheel.
Kinda worthless to put the blinker on after starting to turn, no? Also, probably doesn’t work so well when you need to change lanes or turn on curves.
