Brake Lights on the Front of Your Car? They're Being Studied -- and Could Prevent More Crashes

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rhunter99@reddit

i would rather they study modern headlights and their blinding pattern, and the effects of jacked up trucks and suvs mixed with regular sized cars

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I dont get how jacked up trucks are considered street legal since they completely bypass crash absorption areas in cars and can also easily ride over the hood into front passenger windows. Their bumpers friggin line up with peoples heads in side impact instead of the door collision bar.

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InsertBluescreenHere@reddit

No shit. LED headlights on any car are too damn bright. Sharp cutoffs do not play well with the human eye so whats beyond your sunlight levels of lighting is appearing darker to you.

I swear these people who ok new car headlights just stick it in a vice turn it on and go yup its fine... Completely ignoring the fact cars go up and down hills and around curves. The big ol 5x7 sealed beams on my 45 year old car are better than some for actual seeing deer and other crap in the roads on twisty hilly backroads.

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FormalOperational@reddit

The solution to this is user-adjustable light leveling. Of course, you'd be relying on the car's owner to do the responsible thing and adjust them. Now that I think about it... with all the cameras on modern cars, and some even getting LiDAR for level 3 autonomous driving, couldn't an AI agent be tasked with controlling the leveling feature?

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-Tilde@reddit

Every modern-ish (2010 onward) vehicle I’ve been in that might carry some cargo or a trailer has had manually adjustable light height.

Nobody uses them. Most cars have auto leveling lights now too that also don’t work for not blinding other cars

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dont-YOLO-ragequit@reddit

The problem is human.

Headlight are supposed to point slightly down but guess what super truck lift or huge tires do, ruin all this.

Same as how people like to complain about cars with holes in the muffler meanwhile others are deleting the whole exhaust or programming backfires into fireworks levels.

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samurai1226@reddit

I would go crazy if you constantly see colored lights flashing in your window all the time. It might also be really distracting if your standing at red light at a crossing and the cars on the opposite side of the road have green lights on.

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Apprehensive-Box-8@reddit

Well, the entire thinking of the article is flawed:

„do you take the risk of a potential crash, assuming that approaching vehicle is slowing down“

No. No you don’t. Just fucking wait. This is public traffic, it’s a „as low risk as possible“ scenario. We don’t need things that will allow people to make less risky decisions in traffic, we need people to understand to not make risky decisions at all.

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CheekyMenace@reddit

we need people to understand to not make risky decisions at all.

Well that's not gonna happen. And they're not all "risky" decisions, people make just plain dumb decisions.

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FormalOperational@reddit

They should be a deep, rich blue. The Bertone Nuccio already had this feature.

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Alpine_Exchange_36@reddit

It’s going to confuse people too. People intuitively know red lights are on the back of the car. Put them on the front and all of the sudden people are slamming their brakes to oncoming traffic

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avocado34@reddit

The lights are green though

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ManufacturerBest2758@reddit

Green means go

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avocado34@reddit

Red means stop

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PubliusDeLaMancha@reddit

Let's start with requiring amber turn signals

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Shrikecorp@reddit

Turn signals, period. It's clear that they come from the factory disabled on most luxury cars.

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mr_lab_rat@reddit

Fuck yeah.

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Chllep@reddit

i still don't understand why the fuck america hasn't moved to euro-standard lights

like, who's losing on it? the roads are safer, the manufacturers save cash on making 2 different kinds of lights, and europeans get to import cars from the US without having to deal with registration issues due to lighting

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BigMoneyChode@reddit

The manufacturers aren't saving cash. If using amber bulbs cut costs, we'd be doing it. I'm pretty sure the manufacturers save money by buying one color bulb and using it for all of the rear lights.

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jcforbes@reddit

But currently they have to buy both types in order to make their cars legal to sell in both places. If the lighting was global standard they'd only have to buy one type.

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BigMoneyChode@reddit

Car companies are assholes but they're not purposely losing money just to make the cars less safe in North America.

Imagine it costs 1¢ more per car to use both red and amber. You sell 1000 cars in North America and 500 in Europe. Instead of spending extra money on 1500 cars, you choose to only spend the extra money on the 500 you have to export to Europe.

You'll also notice that this works the other way too. There are many foreign brands who have used red bulbs on the North American versions of their cars.

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Chllep@reddit

isn't assymetric/symmetric lighting still a thing? you need to figure out a separate headlight for EU markets so it lights up the roadside instead of the opposing lane (at least im pretty sure that's how it works)

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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TimeRemove@reddit

i still don't understand why the fuck america hasn't moved to euro-standard lights

You just answered your own question. As soon as Europe does something first, it becomes a source of national pride for the US, and by extension "political" to change.

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isaac99999999@reddit

And require them to be in the same housing as brake lights and headlights, instead of that stupid fucking Hyundai that has headlights in the normal spot and turn signals where the fog lights go

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7148675309@reddit

That’s less annoying than red indicators

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UncheckedException@reddit

Also forbid GM from pulling their bullshit with reverse lights.

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luckystrike_bh@reddit

Thank you. This is such an easy fix with clear returns. We can require back up cameras but we can't have turn signals be a certain color?

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gluten_heimer@reddit

So if the idea is so you can see if the person approaching from behind you is actually slowing down, this is misguided in my opinion. If I’m stopped at a red light and the person behind me isn’t slowing down, the problem is not the lack of forward-facing brake lights. It’s the fact that they’re not slowing down. Which, in all likelihood, is attributable to distracted and/or intoxicated driving. Fix that and we won’t need front-facing brake lights.

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GMOrgasm@reddit

i could see this being super useful for pedestrians too. in my state, cars have to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks but its always superrr sketchy just stepping out in front of cars and wondering if theyre gonna stop

so seeing front brake lights would be nice

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pdp10@reddit (OP)

It's not for the driver behind you, it's supposed to be for the driver coming perpendicular to you when you're looking to pull out.

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gluten_heimer@reddit

Gotcha, well truthfully I think my argument still stands even with that in mind. Even if I saw brake lights I still wouldn’t pull out in front of someone unless I actually saw them stopping. It’s the same thing as not assuming that someone is actually turning just because their signal is on.

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champythebuttbutt@reddit

I suggested this on here a while back and got a lot of downvotes and ignorant comments. I think it would be useful when deciding to go forward with a turn at an intersection if you could see if the person coming towards you was braking. If it would show how hard the brakes are being applied so much the better.

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Arctic_Chilean@reddit

I'd rather we get a subtle blue light indicator for cars that are on autonomous self-driving mode.

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SoCalChrisW@reddit

Already happening for level 4 autonomous cars.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/12/19/business/mercedes-adds-new-light-color-blue-for-self-driving

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RelativeMotion1@reddit

Green.

Blue is too cop-adjacent. Aside from all the state and local laws that would be an issue, it’s not unique or noticeable enough. Green is unusual, easy to notice, and easier to navigate legally.

Some volunteer firefighters are going to be mad, but I think we can probably pacify them with free PBR and jorts.

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Patrollingthemojave0@reddit

What states have volunteer firefighters use green lights? I live in the northeast and all states up here Blue strobes are for volunteer fire. I know south of Ohio blue strobes tend to be reserved for cops.

Oddly enough in my state of NY Green lights on cars are reserved for volunteer EMTs responding to a Rescue or first aid squad call. I don’t think any other states have that.

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kimi_rules@reddit

This should be standard everywhere, I'll be on ACC and people get pissed at me for following the speed limit at the middle lane.

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byerss@reddit

To what end, exactly?

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isaac99999999@reddit

Well if it's a tesla then you can know to stay far away from it and if ita anything else you know the car is safe to be around

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Login_rejected@reddit

A front brake light still doesn't tell you if the car is turning before you or after you. You'd still need to wait until they actually start turning in many situations.

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csimonson@reddit

God, there’s so many other things that they could actually look into that would make driving safer. One thing would be getting rid of daytime, running lights and having headlights and tail lights on at all times when the engine is running.

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jabroni4545@reddit

More of a risk all the drivers without their lights on at night. Auto headlights would fix this.

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Godvater@reddit

I would instead advice US to fix the rear signals to be amber. Can’t believe they still allow the rear lights to be used as turn signals.

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Nefilim314@reddit

This would be great to have for when someone is approaching with a turn signal active and you can’t tell if they are slowing down to turn into your parking lot of if they are driving to the other entrance three blocks away.

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snktiger@reddit

isn't this why they mandated new car's daylight driving lights to be on even during day time?

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NCSUGrad2012@reddit

Isn’t the point of daytime running light is that they’re on during the day?

Do you mean headlights light on all the time?

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Naroef@reddit

In Canada if you're in gear the headlights have to be on as well.

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Funny-Dragonfruit116@reddit

No, you can drive with your headlights off in the daytime. But all cars made after 1990 have to have DRLs.

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alehanro@reddit

Didn’t read the article or OP’s comment

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kon---@reddit

I can't make any sense of the written example but can say it's an unnecessary idea that doesn't require more outward signal but does require getting drivers trained up in reading what other cars are intending.

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Drone30389@reddit

Boy all these patent holders* will be pleased.

Seems like it would be more useful to have a "accelerating" light in the front.

*I had a link to google patent search but automod didn't like it, so here's just the first one:

U.S. Pat. No. 3,665,392
Inventor: John T. Annas
Issued: May 23, 1972
A driver communication signal mounted against the front windshield of a motor vehicle, visible to pedestrials and on-corning traffic and automatically energized upon brake application to indicate driver's intention to stop. The invention provides a double light source and driver observed light source monitoring means as well as provision to ensure good visibility even on bright sunshine days.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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Tushroom@reddit

As if being behind someone who constantly taps their brakes isn’t annoying enough, now you get to still deal with them after you pass them. This also does nothing. You don’t need green lights to make it obvious if someone is slowing down to turn so you’re good to pull out into the road. If you do need that, you shouldn’t be driving to begin with.

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pdp10@reddit (OP)

My first thought was about the legality of red lights, which are a big no-no on non-official vehicles. They want them to be green:

While you might be thinking this thinking would lead to a bright red light fitted to the front and sides of a vehicle --which is illegal in the FMVSS and further still by many state laws on forward and side lighting -- the study by Graz University of Austria, Comenius University of Slovakia, and the Bonn Institute for Legal and Traffic Psychology of Germany suggests that these forward brake lights be green in color. A logical idea considering that a front green light would automatically be associated with the sign that you’re good to go, just like a standard traffic light.

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NHTSA and the FMVSS section 108 only allow for white or clear lenses or lighting for forward illumination and white or amber color or lighting for side and signal lighting. Auxiliary lighting like daytime running, driving lights, or fog lights can be white or amber in color, too. Any other color is not legal on the front or sides of a vehicle.

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While Mercedes-Benz has an "OK" to run turquoise lights—indicating a vehicle in true full-self driving mode on SAE Level 3 prototype vehicles -- in a couple of states, this is technically not legal for the rest of the U.S. and is an exception.

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