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
I always wanted a similar system to what you see in racing video games, when they display input controls. A red and green bar on the rear of the vehicle which shows accelerator pedal position, and a red bar which, in real life would have to show deceleration, as a percentage of theoretical maximum, rather than pedal position, as in the games.
It’s worth asking who makes money off of them not doing so. Any ideas? Like, maybe all their related repair shops, parts manufacturers, dealerships for when the damage was too much? That’s all lost revenue if they make things safer. & if the NTSB doesn’t make them do it, they won’t
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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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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.
Blinkers should be blinking before you turn the wheel. I once drove as a passenger with a driver who only started blinking after he started his manoeuvres and those 40T trucks were hammering their horns for a good reason. Scary as hell experience, would not recommend.
That’s how the car knows to deploy the safety systems including the seatbelt and airbags
Some semi tractors have implemented brake lights that activate under exhaust braking, and its fucking annoying.
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)
There is a Technology Connections video about this xD:
Between XKCD and Alec, the whole of human knowledge’s pretty much covered.
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.
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.
They sell something like this for motorcycles because engine braking is so common. If I recall it is like a 3-4 wire install and ~$100.
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.
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 there are laws that specify when the brake light has to come on, and it isn’t when the car shows down (slightly).
To be clear, the laws say when it must illuminate. They do not (in the US) prevent illuminating it for other reasons in any way. The law says the light must illuminate/burn if you are actively pressing the gas pedal, but does not prevent it from also illuminating if a certain amount of regenerative braking is applied or a deceleration is detected. Theoretically an automaker could get away with making the brake lights simply always illuminate (and that loophole would be fixed in days, so no one does it).
That is indeed US-specific. I’m in the EU, and here it’s defined by when and how it’s switched. Specifically, it is required to be tied to the brake pedal (i.e. then intention to brake) and/or the hand brake being pulled. It is not allowed to illuminate otherwise. But the exact specifics probably also vary by country here. That’s why I emphasized that part.
EDIT: There are actually deceleration values in some laws, possibly tied to regulation of EVs and the regenerative braking. Since that isn’t necessarily tied to the brake pedal when silmulating engine braking, but can be adjusted in strength at will (it isn’t tied to the mechanics of the drag of an idling engine as it would with an ICE). A quick google told me that the lights are allowed to come on at 0.7 m/s² and are required to come on at 1.3 m/s². This obviously implies that they are NOT allowed to come on below 0.7 m/s². This still applies only to (pure) EVs, as far as I can tell (not hybrids, and not ICE powered cars).
Yep, EU as usual having reasonable and well-thought out laws, give the US about 5 more years and they’ll make it law here too.
Which is also why it doesn’t come on if you’re motor breaking" (is that the right term?)
I believe the term you technically want is engine braking
Oh yes, that sounds right. Thanks!
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.
What if you don’t have 2 eyes?
3 eyes works just as well.
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.
I feel like thete must be a Technology Connections video about this.
Gosh that guy sure is good at talking about various types of indicator lights.
That’s 90% of good tech
