Here’s an idea. How about we zap the drivers after they make a turn if they didn’t use a turn signal beforehand? 😀

sliding light or arrows

How would you do that so it isn’t ugly as hell

same way we do with lights now, design them attractively. It is not always successful and that’s on the manufacturers.

and isn’t prone to misunderstanding?

what about it is confusing? green = not coming at you so it’s okay to turn left (or whatever).

I’ve seen newer cars turn the headlight off while the turn indicator is on, so you get a sort of double-blink effect.

I don’t see any reason why we can’t just have the whole headlight blink yellow as well with the turn indicator. LEDs are everywhere and can handle changing colors really easily, so it’s not hard to require that for all new cars.

< and > for turns. X for brakes.

Honestly, we should focus on functionality rather than aesthetic.

Heads up, it’s actually keyboard and chair, not keyboard and computer

I’ve always heard it as “PICNIC”

Problem In Chair, Not In Computer

I’ve actually always found it weird with all the automation vehicles have, that blinkers aren’t linked to the wheel. it already automatically disengages when turning, it shouldn’t be too hard to have it auto engage as well when turning

I think what he wants is the front turn signal to wrap around the front, so I can see the left signal from the right quarter.

I’m not aware that this is not the case, but I don’t know that I would have noticed if it was not.

I mean when a car is coming at me from a cross street, I want to be able to tell if they’re turning or just an asshole not using their signal. On some cars, the turn signal is mounted so far to the side that if they’re approaching from my right and turning right onto the same street as me, I can’t see that turn signal. Sometimes combined with the roundness of the nose exacerbating the problem.

Because the designers and marketers were given priority over the safety engineers.

These people might be two-footed drivers. My mother used to do this and you’d see the brakes flash on and off while following behind her because she’d be hovering her foot on the brake pedal while also hitting the accelerator.

Brake light activates before the brakes engages, so they could just be resting their foot on the brake while coasting. Pretty normal defensive driving technique. People tend to do it in heavier traffic or when people are tailgating them. Gives a way faster brake response.

Every couple weeks or so I seem to find myself behind someone that’s always either accelerating, or braking, with the brake lights repeatedly flashing on momentarily for no apparent reason.

In many EVs and Hybrids the “letting off the accelerator” engages the regeneration drag which slows the car. A number of vehicle makers with particularly aggressive drag (which gets higher regen rates) automatically illuminate the brake lights. So if you’re behind one of these it will look like they are braking when they may have no foot on any pedal (brake or accelerator).

Please allow me this opportunity to jump in and complain about the minority, but not insignificant number, of people that don’t seem to be aware that that is even an option (just taking your foot off of the gas/accelerator to slowly decelerate).

😂 I feel your pain

Now that’s taking things too far.

But the slow down thing can actually catch drivers by surprise, especially with electric vehicles.

Possibly, and I’d be interested in some sort of 360° LED on top of a vehicle to indicate to pedestrians and other drivers alike of its (de)acceleration.

But jamming some non standard colours in what is a long term understanding on the front of a vehicle I can’t really get with and would like to see the impact to people with partial / colour blindness with using such a system.

Like, does the average pedestrian know what the green and red lights mean on an aircraft? I bet not.

hybrid/electric cars already do it with regen braking.

Not all of them. It is becoming more common, but for a while Hyundai and Kia didn’t do this, and I know my older Ford doesn’t.

Probably just in the US, since brake lights are only required when pressing the brake pedal. Mercedes illuminates them but then turns the brake lights off once the vehicle comes to a stop using regen.

Yes that as well, I love mine and use them a lot. But that’s a step above rear running lights. There’s no god damn reasons the rear indicators shouldn’t be on all the time.

it’s forbidden to use rear fog lights under rain (it’s more confusing than helpful)

if you live somewhere dry, that’s not a concern. But here it rains 1 day in 3

The hazards also override your turn signals so I now have no idea when you are going to attempt lane change.

Thats more an issue of using the same lamp for rear lights and turn signal

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I strongly doubt it was genuinely linked to that. There are EU countries where having lights on all the time is mandatory.

Yeah, the only thing I could think of is that I’m driving down a country road, and I see the front brake light ahead of me because someone stopped for a deer in the road or something.

Otherwise I cannot fathom what benefit it brings. Anything that ultimately becomes “if you see this light, it’s safe to [X] in front of this vehicle” is going to get people killed.

And the negative state of “the lack of this light means that the vehicle could be moving” is exactly what we have now.

But isn’t that exactly the situation we’re in now? If there’s a car in the opposing left turn lane, they might start to turn in front of you.

The only thing the light does is say “right now, they’re braking”. It doesn’t say whether they’re moving or stationary any more than the headlights, and it doesn’t say anything about their intentions or whether it’s safe to enter the intersection.

I get what you’re saying — so it’s about the subconscious awareness of the state change that happens after the driver decided to go, but before the car starts moving. I can see some amount of value in that.

I still can’t help but think it’s going to be interpreted by many as a sign that it’s safe to proceed and ignore the car rather than be prepared for any eventuality, though.

If anything I think they would have to use a green light that turns on when accelerating/not braking. It would be way more dangerous in the future when people are trained with “No green = braking” but older cars don’t have the light at all.
It’s important to consider how a transition like this would even work. I personally think this is a little too drastic of a change, and is incompatible with existing vehicles and habits.

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If a car is braking it rides differently from one that isn’t. A car is normally rather level and leans “forward” when braking.

Besides that, YOU SHOULDNT GET IN FRONT OF ANYTHING YOU ARENT SURE IS STOPPING. If it’s moving fast enough that you need this, you shouldn’t be trying to get in front anyways.

Ah. I see. They are emitting a green light, so I know they’re braking, and it’s OK to cross.

But, it turns out that they’re planning on turning into a driveway past the intersection, and not into the intersection I am crossing.

That’s OK. I can check “impersonate a hood ornament” off my bucket list.

We already have this problem with turn signals: there are circumstances where it would be confusing and dangerous to use them in the manner prescribed by law, and to avoid dangerous ambiguity, they should actually be used much later than the law specifies.

It is to colorblind people. You could use something else of course, just saying…

Flashing blue would be neat.

The EU has approved G-triggered brake lights that do just that, flash rapidly on hard braking. I’ve only seen it on higher end cars so far, but they absolutely exist. Unfortunately in the US people stick brake flashers that blink in patterns every time they touch the brake. Mostly useless as they’re installed to be “look at me, aren’t I cool with my blinky brake lights?” rather than any additional safety.

I think some cars also turn on the hazards automatically if you really hammer the breaks.

That could probably be implemented in most existing vehicles, and at least it would provide more information.

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If Japan introduced that they never caught on, unless it’s specific to an area or model of car.

I suspect because there’s no consistency in the brightness of vehicle lights. But that’s one of the reasons why I think an incremental light bar would be better, there’s no variation between vehicles. You could even make it more informative by flashing the whole bar when you first brake, so someone behind you can more easily see how much of the bar is being lit up.

probably because thats a terrible way to do it. It would be noticeable if a car started braking and then started braking much harder, but if they slam on the brakes you don’t see anything change, just a normal brake light.

There’s this idea I’ve been considering for a long time.

Imagine putting a remote controlled firework smoke bomb under the tailpipe, hidden from sight. At best a really stinky one that smells like burned rubber or something.

When someone follows to closely, just fake an engine issue or something by activating the smoke bomb and fill their AC air intake with the smell of burned rubber for weeks. Just to teach them to not follow too closely again.

I suspect a lot of that has to do with the entitled way people are driving these days. If you leave a car length gap, some kid will wrecklessly attempt to cram their way in because your lane momentarily moved slightly faster.

Does your state not require good lights on the trailers? I just built a new trailer last year, I was required to have full working brake and turn signals along with running lights, but I went the extra step and included more brake/turn lights on the front and rear of the fenders, along with reverse lights plus four marker lights along each side. Trailers are hard enough to see, I didn’t want to make it harder for anyone by just sticking with the bare minimum.

Turn signals can be either red or amber in the US.

Good luck transporting a couch on a motorbike.

That’s why I bought mine!

Yeah, no.

Those things are death traps and there’s a reason why they’re mostly prevalent in nations where people literally can’t afford anything safer.

You would think killing off the stupid would improve the breed. But apparently the real world shows it does not. Besides, I ain’t riding a motorbike at -40 Celsius or Fahrenheit or in 30cm/12" of fresh snow or in a thunderstorm.

I live in Maine. Riding a motorcycle in the winter is not only highly unpleasant, it’s borderline suicidal.

I’m all for 2 wheeled transport where it works, but anywhere that gets snow for months out of each year it’s a non starter as a primary transportation mode

This might be the dumbest comment I have ever read on the Internet. That’s like 30 years of comments.

One pedal driving just sounds like motion sickness city.

I feel like if your car is doing anything to actively slow itself down (as in apart from just cruising) it should turn the brake lights on.

Every car needs proximity chat so traffic becomes like a COD lobby.

Road rage 5000 initiate

Yeah this is exactly what I have in mind. I want to feel like Smokey the Bandit calling people out for bad behavior with a receiver that has a coiled cable attached to it, at a minimum.

CB radios often had a “PA” switch that sent your microphone audio to a loudspeaker under the hood

We used to roll those back in the day. A friend gave my very drunk self a lift home one evening and I used it to give commentary to a group of revellers on the side of the road… who threw a beer bottle at us, and then chased the car which luckily didn’t get stopped at the traffic light nearby.

Good times.

No. I want to make my voice loud enough for me to stop at a red light and ask the guy behind me if there is a proctology emergency or if they could stop riding my ass, and savor their expression as it dawns on them what is happening.

I’ve never done it, but I wonder if turning on the rear fog lights would work. You’re not braking, but they might think you are. I don’t know what the legality of that would be

Pretend to suddenly avoid a pothole.

There are LED bars for mounting in your rear windows to display text to those behind you

Liknks or didn’t happen

Ah but I don’t care about my life

It’s possible. Red really is only supposed to be on the back to indicate the rear of the vehicle.

It’s why on stretches of road where passing in oncoming lanes is legal, they tell you to turn on your headlights (daytime headlights section.) Its so that there is a distinguishing feature between the front and rear of the car.

Clearly it’s your fault for both breaking and going around a corner at the same time. Who does that?

Agreed. Are they turning, or just braking periodically with a taillight out? Who knows!

I also love the front turn signals that turn off that headlight. Dumb as hell for everyone.

Also, animated signals should be banned. On or off, no flashing, glowing, or sliding.

I’ve always hated that. I feel like I’m seeing it less and less on newer vehicles, though, so maybe manufacturers are also realizing that it’s stupid as hell.

Or maybe it’s just not worth the cost to have two different but mostly identical versions of a very expensive and highly integrated modern taillight housing for different markets.

How about less reliance on cars in the first place?

Americans seem to think of buses as some sort of commie plot.

Passing a test is very different from internalizing the lessons tested.

As someone with ADHD, it is relaxing. And it is super enjoyable. I like thinking about how the weight of my car shifts going around corners. I like trying to be as smooth as possible shifting gears. There is a lot of information and the focus on it all quiets the noise normally in my head.

Leave early enough you aren’t stressed about being late.

Just let the asshole aggressive driver in.

Leave more than enough space that you have time to react.

Don’t treat it as a competition and it’s a pleasurable experience.

Define safe? If everyone drives safely enough that you are more likely to die of suicide than an automobile accident, is that safe enough?

Reading all such things I’m starting to think “what if I can drive?” I’ve always thought I can’t, but since everyone around who thinks they can drive like suicide bombers, maybe I should find those driving lessons.

Because it wasn’t blindingly obvious? I don’t know how tall the truck in front of me is, and since I don’t drive tall vehicles I know even less about the heights of bridges. Usually commercial drivers are the better ones.

If we limited drivers permits to the 8% or so of drivers who are actually competent we’d solve a lot of problems in several domains.

I self-selected as ineligible to drive years ago, and I’ve never regretted it. Of course I had to move away from my home country and learn a new language, but those are the shakes.

I have to contend with 70-80 year olds doing 30km in an 80 while swerving across the midline because they saw a bird across the street.

The couple of times they tried out roundabouts in my area, they didn’t last long because people were too stupid to figure out how to use them. So instead they just bitched until they were taken out.

Why not move to a place where low mobility doesn’t cut you off from the rest of society?

There’s plenty of retirement communities where you can get around with a golf cart. In the 3 biggest cities here in SK, old folk can ride the subways for free, and sometimes you even see them drive mobility scooters on.

Other places I’ve been have level boarding for buses, but I’ve never seen someone drive a mobility scooter onto one. Certainly it wouldn’t fly in SK.

So risking everyone else’s life around you is worth it?

Another kind of solution. But not needed.

Well, around here “good drivers” can “read” the bad drivers’ intent, and in a setting like a four way stop they can usually avoid getting hit by yielding, regardless of right of way circumstances.

That’s actually another good use, a kind of passive turn signal - though if they’re really turning you should be able to notice their reduced speed without a light - and drivers who start depending on the front brake light to read intent to turn might actually have more accidents instead of less.

Just yesterday I watched a car pull out into an intersection less than one car-length in front of a car driving straight through the intersection, slowly. I can’t know what they were thinking, but I would guess they assumed that the slow car going straight was about to turn, then they quit paying attention and pulled out just in time for the collision to be un-avoidable.

You’re right about turn signals.

A lot of people have “target fixation” and telegraph their moves somewhat. I look at where the car is tracking in the lane and what their head is doing (if I can see it). Most people drift left or right on the highway before they change lanes, exit, or turn. It’s no excuse for bad manners, but it helps.

Turn signal or not, you shouldn’t be pulling out in front of them. You should be assuming they are turning into a driveway after the intersection, or that they mistook your intersection for the next one down the road, or that they left their turn signal on from a lane change 5 miles back.

Turn signals are lies until conclusively proven otherwise.

Higher up and brighter lights=driver can see more and feels safer. Yes, even if shadows and the area immediately arounds the car are less visible and the vehicle becomes more dangerous for everyone around you.

You say this like those same people won’t leave it on stun

There are now headlights that can be “high” but block out portions of the beam directed at light sources like oncoming headlights. Can’t have them in the US though.

How do I set my car’s status to “It’s complicated”?