Because there are laws that specify when the brake light has to come on, and it isn’t when the car shows down (slightly). You could be starting to go up hill, or a list of other reasons. The point of brake lights isn’t too signify the car slowing, but that the driver intends to slow down. Which is also why it doesn’t come on if you’re motor breaking" (is that the right term?).
This obviously varies wildly depending on where you are in the world. I’m also sure there are some places where it would be allowed.
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.
Technology Connections on YT has. Awhile rant about this. https://youtu.be/U0YW7x9U5TQ?si=SZaEzNCDKoLXhx83
A rant? Alec? Surely, you jest.
Alec would never rant about anything! (/s)
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.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
Because your life isn’t worth the extra dollar to them.
More accurately, if they added one single extra component like that, they would raise the MSRP by like $500. Because we live in capitalist hell. Therefore, it’s included in higher quality cars, and/or as an optional feature. Like most safety anything, they won’t automatically include it in anything unless they are literally forced to by law. And even then though sometimes not and say they did. And still up charge you for it. Isn’t capitalism fan-fucking-tastic?
They take the worst of the three options. They don’t eat the dollar, they don’t put it in the base model for 500 dollars extra, they lock it behind the big wheels, sporty engine, and wood trim so only the rich people have safety features that aren’t absolutely required by law.
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.
I would like to share this with you: https://youtu.be/U0YW7x9U5TQ
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
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.
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 rented an electric car recently (Mach-E) and almost exclusively drove in single-pedal mode.
Thought a lot about this video as I was driving.
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.
I have seen several - if you press hard enough to Activate ABS on dry road, you most likely will see the hazard lights on
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.
I reach for the hazard lights any time I’m about to break hard or if someone in front has done something that will make me slow unexpectedly.
I seem to remember that when BMW first rolled out LED taillights they did something like this — they were brighter when the driver absolutely slammed on the brakes. No idea if that was a concept or in production cars though.
I know cats that blink the middle light if you brake hard.
EDIT: I’m not fixing that typo
Upvote for typo.
They get brighter based on how much you push the brake
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 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.
This does exist on certain vehicles, like ambulances.
But I’ve heard (unconfirmed) that it would be illegal in several states to put on passenger vehicles.
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
This would be a really cool standard! I only wish it would work here in the US, where our brake lights have to pull double duty as turn signals. But in sensible places like the countrirs in Europe, this would be dope!
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.
One foot EV driving does turn on the brake lights when it exceeds a certain deceleration amount.
But most EVs default to slowly charging the car and slowing it in a similar way to ICE compression braking (which uses 0 fuel in fuel injected cars BTW).
Anyway regardless of how the vehicle is slowing down, the NHTSA allows for the brake lights to be activated by other devices that slow the car (not just the pedal), and the UN requires brake lights be applied if the vehicle deceleration exceeds
https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/trans/main/wp29/wp29regs/R13hr2e.pdf
That is not the case in the US or in the EU. Things like GM and Hyundai won’t even show the brakes with the foot completely off on full regen. You will specifically say you cannot do have a secondary braking systems as well which is where I think the issue comes in. BMW and Mercedes both only show brake lights when you fully remove your foot from the accelerator with regen turned on
These are the rules both in EU and US and have been for quite a while, and both BMW and MB implement them.
That’s how the car knows to deploy the safety systems including the seatbelt and airbags
I feel like there must be a Technology Connections video about this.
Not a car, but I’ve got a bicycle light that does this. Turns on when it’s dark and also when you brake. So definitely possible
Can you share a link to that? I’m looking for a new light.
search google smart cycle light autosense brake light.
