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Slanted Opinion
Turbo EFI
Joined: 22 Feb 2005
Posts: 1089
Location: Maine
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Post subject:
Blinking brake light
(Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:36 am)
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The other day I was following a Honda Accord (it looked like a fairly recent model) through the big city of Gray, Maine. When the brakes were applied the "3rd brake light" began flashing. It was an attention getter, for sure.
Is this a factory thing on the new Accords? I haven't seen any others, so I'm thinking that this was an add-on by the owner.
Not sure it was legal, but it did call attention to the stopped vehicle.
- Mac
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hantayo13
Turbo EFI
Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Posts: 1742
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Post subject:
(Sat Feb 11, 2012 6:15 am)
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know you can get a setup to flash your motorcycle rear/stop
light
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Romeo Furio
Turbo Slant 6
Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 796
Location: Boulder City Nevada
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Post subject:
(Sat Feb 11, 2012 7:21 am)
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| They have been around for a while as my Neon and Breeze both had it. Dealer installed,aftermarket. Cars were 2000,2001. If I remember they were a small device that hooked inline at the light.Snip main power wire,2 connectors,done.May have taken the tech about 5 minutes.Both cars had the light in the trunk lid. I'm sure any auto parts store can get them.
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SlantSixDan
Board Sponsor & Contributor
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 21883
Location: North America
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Post subject:
(Sat Feb 11, 2012 11:08 am)
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A flashing central brake light is not better. It is worse. Do not modify your car this way. If a dealer or other party has broken Federal law by tampering with your car this way, undo it as soon as you can. You may or may not get a ticket for the flashing brake light, but the main thing is that it makes you considerably less safe in traffic.
It is Federally illegal and extremely dangerous to modify the wiring to the central brake light (or any brake light) so that it flashes. The marketers of brake light flashers make all kinds of claims about attention-grabbing power, safety, etc.; none of the claims has any merit. Those who advocate (and sell) this kind of equipment like to focus very narrowly on what they think is common sense: a flashing light is more attention-getting than a solid light, end of story. No, it's not! The real world does not operate according to anyone's "common sense" (by which is often meant "financial interest"). Danger comes from altering the standard coding of messages from the vehicle's lights; you force the drivers behind you to take time to suss out exactly what message your car is conveying. Meanwhile, every fraction of a second they spend thus distracted counts against your likelihood of avoiding being hit. The distracting effect is worsened by the fact that red light is already heavily overloaded with meanings in North American lighting regs. A vehicle's taillights, stop lights, rear fog light (if equipped), and rear side marker light are all red. The rear turn signal is also often red. It is left to the driver behind the car to determine which of these functions is being displayed. "Flashing red" already means "turn signal", and muddying up an already overloaded signal identifier by flashing the brake light is thus a seriously bad idea. Which is why it is expressly prohibited by Federal and Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108. So is selling any device which, by installation, causes a vehicle to fall out of compliance with FMVSS 108 -- and all of the brake light flasher modules are such devices.
Motorcyclists have a legitimate beef; other drivers don't see them. That is a fact known to science. It is a hideously difficult problem to solve. Many motorcyclists have many pet theories and anecdotes about how much safer they (feel they) are since they modified their bike's lights in an enormous variety of imaginative (and illegal) ways, but lots of lighting-related solutions have been extensively studied, including flashing brake lights and "modulating"/flashing headlamps, with utterly zero improvement in real, actual safety (i.e., likelihood of being involved in a crash). We are finally beginning to figure out how to light motorcycles to effectively reduce their crash risk, now that we have access to lighting technology that doesn't restrict us to a reflector-and-housing type of configuration. White LED arrays highlighting the handlebars and front fork show great promise in the first studies, for example. But so far, the best way found to reduce motorcycle crash risk has nothing to do with lighting: Bright/light colored motorcycles and motorcyclists (helmet, gear) are -- wait for it -- seven times less likely to be in a crash than dark-colored motorcycles and motorcyclists. That's actual crash data speaking.
Back to cars: DON'T MAKE THE BRAKE LIGHT FLASH! It's neither safe nor legal._________________ 一期一会
By birth & parentage: US citizen, 2nd class
By choice: Canadian citizen, 1st class
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hantayo13
Turbo EFI
Joined: 19 Feb 2005
Posts: 1742
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Post subject:
(Sat Feb 11, 2012 1:53 pm)
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| agrees with Dan.....why my bike are usally safety orange as well a 4 inch orange stripe on my leather jacket
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wjajr
Supercharged
Joined: 16 Feb 2008
Posts: 3640
Location: Downeast Maine
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Post subject:
(Sun Feb 12, 2012 4:00 pm)
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Almost every invisible motor cycle I have encountered in the last twenty years has been the result of the hideously fat steeply raked A Pillars now the palette of current automotive designers. Personally I despise these oversized girders, along with oversized windshield mounted review mirrors hung too low that greatly restrict passive peripheral vision.
I find forward and peripheral vision much less obstructed in the Dart and LeBaron as their windshields are much closer one’s eyes, and more vertical than today’s auto offerings.
Wider forward lighting display such as horizontal LED array running tip to tip of handle bars would negate some of the A pillar blind spot; a good idea whose time has come. But, as I have said previously, as more vehicles are utilizing running lights, more drivers are looking for lights, and not vehicles; a catch 22._________________ 67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC
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Chuck
Site Admin
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1209
Location: Grass Valley, Ca.
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Post subject:
(Thu Mar 08, 2012 4:31 pm)
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| Dan, it would be cool if you knew any links to studies that our users could read. |
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SlantSixDan
Board Sponsor & Contributor
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 21883
Location: North America
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Post subject:
(Thu Mar 08, 2012 5:53 pm)
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| wjajr wrote: | | the hideously fat steeply raked A Pillars now the palette of current automotive designers. |
They're getting fatter, too; US regulations have recently been revised to increase roof crush resistance in rollover crashes. The US NHTSA is the world's only regulatory agency futzing around with this stuff; rollovers account for a very small percentage of incidents and an even smaller percentage of injuries and deaths. Vehicle/pedestrian collisions are the number-1 cause of traffic-related injuries and deaths. The international-consensus UN regulations (used to be called the "European" regs but over the years the whole world except US/Canada has adopted them) are years ahead of the US in improving pedestrian protection; rest-of-world-spec vehicles are vastly safer to get hit by than US-spec vehicles, but US regulators have no interest in looking at pedestrian protection. Ridiculous state of affairs.
| Quote: | | as I have said previously, as more vehicles are utilizing running lights, more drivers are looking for lights, and not vehicles |
Not really. There is some disadvantage to not having daytime running lights once most of the on-road vehicles have them, but it's not nearly so severe as it would be if "drivers were looking for lights and not vehicles", and it is easily remedied with daytime running lights (of one sort or another) on vehicles not originally so equipped; the crash-reduction benefit does not go away once all cars have them._________________ 一期一会
By birth & parentage: US citizen, 2nd class
By choice: Canadian citizen, 1st class
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SlantSixDan
Board Sponsor & Contributor
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 21883
Location: North America
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Post subject:
(Thu Mar 08, 2012 6:02 pm)
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| Chuck wrote: | | Dan, it would be cool if you knew any links to studies that our users could read. |
I'll see what I can dig up. What specifically are you looking for?
Many of them are not freely published, nor are they digested, USA Today style, into bite-size chunklets. They tend to be highly technical with vocabulary and syntax very easily not understood, misunderstood, or misinterpreted by those not close enough to the field to have the background knowledge that is assumed when the studies are written up._________________ 一期一会
By birth & parentage: US citizen, 2nd class
By choice: Canadian citizen, 1st class
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Chuck
Site Admin
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1209
Location: Grass Valley, Ca.
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Post subject:
(Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:04 pm)
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| That's too bad. I was hoping for some written reference for our users so they could refer to the studies. Keeps 'em from twisting the facts. |
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SlantSixDan
Board Sponsor & Contributor
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 21883
Location: North America
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Post subject:
(Thu Mar 08, 2012 7:35 pm)
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| Chuck wrote: | | That's too bad. I was hoping for some written reference for our users so they could refer to the studies. |
You're describing my twelve-bookshelf-and-many-boxes library.
 _________________ 一期一会
By birth & parentage: US citizen, 2nd class
By choice: Canadian citizen, 1st class
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kesteb
Board Sponsor
Joined: 06 Nov 2002
Posts: 1511
Location: Everett, WA
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Post subject:
(Thu Mar 08, 2012 10:37 pm)
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| SlantSixDan wrote: | | wjajr wrote: | | the hideously fat steeply raked A Pillars now the palette of current automotive designers. |
They're getting fatter, too; US regulations have recently been revised to increase roof crush resistance in rollover crashes. The US NHTSA is the world's only regulatory agency futzing around with this stuff; rollovers account for a very small percentage of incidents and an even smaller percentage of injuries and deaths.
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It is the nature of bureaucracies to regulate everything into oblivion. This includes the use of common sense. If you can't see out of the car due to large blind spots, is it really any saver.
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wjajr
Supercharged
Joined: 16 Feb 2008
Posts: 3640
Location: Downeast Maine
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Post subject:
(Fri Mar 09, 2012 12:15 pm)
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Dan:
| Quote: | | They're getting fatter, too; US regulations have recently been revised to increase roof crush resistance in rollover crashes. The US NHTSA is the world's only regulatory agency futzing around with this stuff; rollovers account for a very small percentage of incidents and an even smaller percentage of injuries and deaths |
Great, why not just frame up the roof support with 24 inch web I beams and be done with it, hell why don’t we just drive Abrams tanks; those things don’t readily crush when flipped on their back.
| Quote: | | Vehicle/pedestrian collisions are the number-1 cause of traffic-related injuries and deaths. The international-consensus UN regulations (used to be called the "European" regs but over the years the whole world except US/Canada has adopted them) are years ahead of the US in improving pedestrian protection; rest-of-world-spec vehicles are vastly safer to get hit by than US-spec vehicles, but US regulators have no interest in looking at pedestrian protection. Ridiculous state of affairs. |
Pedestrians are their own worst enemies. A vast percentage of these damn fools violate every traffic rule ever written, and then whine if still alive, that they got hit.
In the land of endless red tape, featherless bipeds sharing the byways with vehicular traffic should be required to shoulder some of the responsibility of crash avoidance. Visibility standards would be a start (walking, or running lights, or huge reflective orange triangle sandwich boards), increased fines for walking on wrong side of road, jay walking, and just doing stupid stuff (if this was a driver, he would be charged with “driver inattention”). Where is Darwin?
| Quote: | | Not really. There is some disadvantage to not having daytime running lights once most of the on-road vehicles have them, but it's not nearly so severe as it would be if "drivers were looking for lights and not vehicles", and it is easily remedied with daytime running lights (of one sort or another) on vehicles not originally so equipped; the crash-reduction benefit does not go away once all cars have them. |
So if I read this correctly you are advocating nothing more than a “tightener for a loostener”. Dan you have produced some fine bureaucratic double talk there buddy…
| Quote: | | the crash-reduction benefit does not go away once all cars have them. |
So at this point what are driver’s looking for from oncoming traffic? Pink elephants or their trunks?
Personally I feel like we are drowning in government regulation, and see no end to this trend._________________ 67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC
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Chuck
Site Admin
Joined: 12 Oct 2002
Posts: 1209
Location: Grass Valley, Ca.
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Post subject:
(Fri Mar 09, 2012 12:19 pm)
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I think the idea of daytime running lights is to stand out. I side with Dan. Once everybody has them, you won't stand out anymore.
Another insane thing is having the turn signals right next to the headlights. When I come to the intersection of a highway about a mile from my house, I can't see the turn signal on the cars on the other side of the road because this is a "daylight headlight" section. The headlights swamp out the turn signals. At least on my Dart they are far enough away that they can be seen when the headlights are on. |
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SlantSixDan
Board Sponsor & Contributor
Joined: 31 Oct 2002
Posts: 21883
Location: North America
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Post subject:
(Fri Mar 09, 2012 1:18 pm)
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| wjajr wrote: | | Pedestrians are their own worst enemies. |
Everyone using the roads needs to behave him- or herself. Pointing fingers and saying "WE don't hafta behave until THEY behave" accomplishes nothing.
| Quote: | | So if I read this correctly |
You don't.
| Quote: | | you are advocating nothing more than a “tightener for a loostener” |
I don't advocate for things that don't mean anything, so…no.
| Quote: | | Dan you have produced some fine bureaucratic double talk there buddy… |
The problem is on your end. Engage your brain rather than your knee.
| Quote: | | the crash-reduction benefit does not go away once all cars have them. |
So at this point what are driver’s looking for from oncoming traffic? Pink elephants or their trunks?[/quote]
Brain, not knee._________________ 一期一会
By birth & parentage: US citizen, 2nd class
By choice: Canadian citizen, 1st class
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