Brake lights sensitive to braking force

I've seen some semi-trucks that have something like this (except it was simpler in that it was a straight light that would grow from the inside out), but do you really need them? If you just leave enough space in between you and the person in front you will never have a problem. Plus, it already is a pain to change out bulbs in some of these newer cars... I would hate for it to get harder (and more expensive).

It exists already -<p><a href="http://www.usautoparts.net/bmw/technology/brake_force_display.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.usautoparts.net/bmw/technology/brake_force_displa...</a><p><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=break+force+display+bmw" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/search?q=break+force+display+bmw</a>

Had this discussion with a friend 13 years ago in college. Didn't know how get it to market and IIRC my friend found someone else had a patent on it.

I completely agree. In 2008, some students actually made this already: <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news125773212.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.physorg.com/news125773212.html</a><p>I wrote about it back then (in Dutch, <a href="http://micheljansen.org/blog/entry/471" rel="nofollow">http://micheljansen.org/blog/entry/471</a>) and at that time, there were some laws preventing this from really catching on. I guess those have been changed in the mean time?

This is a really useful idea and gives useful more fine-grained information without compromising the overall message: "I'm slowing down."<p>Along a similar vein, I want car horns to be as loud inside a car as they are outside, to ensure they're <i>only</i> used for emergencies. I live in a city and car horns dramatically reduce quality of life because "no honking, $350 penalty" are never actually enforced by the police.

Funny, a very similar idea was discussed here a couple of months ago, when jgrahamc mentioned it was idea 999 in one of his ideas notebooks: <a href="http://blog.jgc.org/2010/10/1000-bad-ideas.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.jgc.org/2010/10/1000-bad-ideas.html</a><p>Here's the discussion: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1779339" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1779339</a>

I suspect this is one of those cool ideas that in practice doesn't work so well, unfortunately.<p>But increasing brake light intensity overall on new cars or replacement brake lamps would increase safety even though old cars might have weaker brake lights. Essentially an "Omigod!" mode.

Best one I ever saw was at Carnegie Mellon. They integrated this onto a CAN bus and were in talks with Bosch.<p><a href="http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ece549/spring10/team7/index.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ece549/spring10/team7/index.html</a>

I remember reading about a similar concept by Citroen I think about 15 years ago. The brake lights would be a much pinker shade if the brakes were applied sharply.

Strong braking normally == hazard lights + brake lights on new cars.<p>It's quicker to recognise than a graded red brake light.

If you are close enough behind to really tell the difference you are probably already too close.

s/sensible/sensitive/;

The new Ford Mustangs have a kit you can install that does just that. I thought about this a few years back and want it so bad!