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By wilki
#1734
Has this been done? Seems like a pretty obvious idea so I guess it has, but been thinking of this for years and never seen it yet. Seems like a real good usp for a SAAB or Volvo. A light which is off the shelf to buy, battery powered, retails for around £30 and without tampering with the cars machanics at all will alert drivers behind of the proportional amount of breaking and de-acceleration. Perhaps a system of LED'S or amount of light intensity.

Any comments??
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By Lukasz
#1784
wilki,
Your are so right! :-B I have not seen this yet. I believe that in some auto program I saw somethink similar, but it was only because teh owner was an inventor ... but it seems that none of the auto companies got the point.
Do you think that dirvers might get to lazy, and stop paying attention due to this divice? - It would be interesting if someone actually made the invention and did some tests.
;-D "Let the force be with you."
ci@
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By Steve
#1786
I think "reaction time" is the keyword (actually two words, whatever :-B ). It's everybody's instinct to step on the brakes if they see the red light flash up in front of them. Wonder if this would work with a gradual braking indicator.

I agree with Lukasz - it would be interesting to see some tests in a driving simulator. ;-D
By wilki
#1802
Many thanks for your replies and sorry for my hurried spelling!! Ideas is my game not grammar. I think the braking light system or a proportional de-acceleration visual rear light would definitely work and if marketed at the right price and as long as it didin't prevent safe motoring and mechanics will contribute to preventing lots of accidents caused by rear end shunts and tail gateing.

Cheers to all and keep on thinking, you never know!!
By oldfred
#4303
If you young "whipper-snappers" could remember the olden days. ;-D
My daddy had a light in the back window of his 1949 Oldsmobile. It was built like a traffic light and was hooked up so the green light was on when the accelerator was pushed, The Yellow light was on when coasting, and of course, the red light was on with brakes.
This was right beside the bobble head dog.
He also had a 5 button horn with 5 separate notes that he could play like a piano.
Oh Yea,, A bahama carriage bell under the front floor, a OOOGA horn, and a coon tail on the antenna.
*beep*, that was a good time to be alive ! :-D
OLDFRED
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By Michael D. Grissom
#4361
Some american cars had this feature in the late 60's. I'm pretty sure it was the 1964 ~ 66 Ford Thunderbird and similar Mercury Cougar. They were called sequential brake lights that also operated as sequential turn signals. It only lasted a few model years -- not sure why because I thought they were really cool AND effective!

Here are some similar products found with a google search on keywords "sequential turn signals" (using quotes).

http://www.webelectricproducts.com/products.htm

Click on thumbnail to play the animation.
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This is an animation of a sequential turn signal
This is an animation of a sequential turn signal
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By MissPlayful
#4371
If I remember correctly there was a trial some years ago in the USA where a large number of taxis were fitted with a brake light that blinked at a speed that indicated the proportional amount of braking, and it significantly reduced the amount of rear-front end collisions (one person’s rear end collision is another person’s front end collision). In Australia I think it is now mandatory to have a brake light in the back window position of all new vehicles, where it is much more easily seen by drivers behind because it is at eye level. But the blinking light system was not adopted for some reason even though I am sure it would have been considered. One reason is that it might be quite distracting to have many blinking lights in your field of view particularly at night (imagine what you would see when approaching a red traffic light with many cars in front of you), and blinking turn signal lights would be more easily missed.
By surftesh
#4497
LED technology is already being used in some BMW's. The 3 and 6 series have "the dynamic two-stage brake lights changing in size and intensity as a function of vehicle deceleration." The rear brake lights supplied by Valeo that get bigger and brighter when the driver brakes hard.
By Rishi
#4507
It appears that what is looked for is an indication of the state of acceleration or deceleration of a vehicle. It also seems desirable to have this independant of the vehicle's mechanism.

If a basic , low cost single axis accelerometer can be combined with an indicator light such a device can be mounted anywhere.

The site below describes a simple mechanism for measuring vehicle acceleration.

http://www.exo.net/~pauld/books/car_sci ... meter.html

It would be a simple matter to rigidise this by using a rigid rod instead of a string to support the weight. The pivot of the pendulum can be attached to a potentiometer, which is at the midpoint in the zero acceleration positon. When the vehicle decelerates the pot rotates in one direction and in the opposite direction when it is accelerating.

The amount of deflection is related to the amount of acceleration or deceleration.

By combining this info with two-colour LEDs (Many available) it should be possible to produce a low cost indicator, which will show(for example) increasingly bright green when accelerating and increasingly bright red when decelerating controlled by the level of action.

Since the components are low cost it should be possible to retail this at below USD 60 with a tidy margin.

Rishi
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