Brake lights need a rethink?

M

michaelluscher

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Oct 7, 2012
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I think he's onto something, and that demonstration of one pedal drive not triggering the brake lights from 60-0 is very concerning

TBF, most Hyundai's I see don't have working brake lights, but that's mainly due to they chew through 2357 bulbs like candy, and many of the recall stop lamp switches were set incorrectly

Should One Pedal Drive, AEB, or Adaptive cruise braking trigger the brake lights, or only when actuating the pedal by foot enough?
It's not a Hyundai/Kia specific problem, many automakers get the lighting wrong
Don't start me on GM and the reverse/tail lamps being used as courtesy lamps
How many times I nearly got ran over as a kid in the parking lot 😳

Discuss...
 
When I had my F-150 PowerBoost (Hybrid), when using Adaptive Cruise Control and lane keep assist, it would trigger the brake lights when it had to apply braking and or come to a stop.
 
RooflessVW said:
If the car is slowing by any means beyond coasting
Click to expand...

How do you define "coasting"?

I've always thought, and a quick Google search suggests that others think too, that "coasting" is when you're in neutral.

Therefore, the brake lights must come on any time your foot is off the gas pedal and you are not in neutral?
 
michaelluscher said:
Should One Pedal Drive, AEB, or Adaptive cruise braking trigger the brake lights, or only when actuating the pedal by foot enough?
Click to expand...

This has already been solved and is explained in the video.

No need to "sneak" an accelerometer into the car: Every car already has one. It's used for stability control. Use that to monitor negative longitudinal g-forces and illuminate the brake lamps once a specific threshold is crossed, indicating significant slowing is occuring

This is exactly how GM does it (as explained in the video). They've done this since before the Bolt too. The Volt, which also had one-pedal driving, activated the brake lamps during deceleration this way too. Adaptive cruise control use the same strategy (and obviously illuminates the lamps if the brakes are actually applied).

Hyundai just has poor implementation, so shame on them. No need to solution a problem that's already been solved or call it over complicated if it's simply a software layer using hardware that's already on the vehicle.
 
Bottom_Feeder said:
Hyundais and Kias, so true. Whenever I see a vehicle with a brake light out (a huge OCD pet peeve of mine) there's a 50% chance it's one of those. lol
Click to expand...

Is that because the brake lights on Hyundais and Kias are more prone to failure OR because the drivers of those vehicles won't bother to replace the bulbs, perhaps because they have other things to spend money on?
 
Agree. Same deal with the MB. It reads speed limit signs, and believe me, when the posted speed changes, IT'S THERE!
Always afraid to use that feature for fear of someone rear ending me, or at least causing a road rage incident.
Nobody drives like that anyway, pretty useless feature.
 
JohnnyG said:
Agree. Same deal with the MB. It reads speed limit signs, and believe me, when the posted speed changes, IT'S THERE!
Always afraid to use that feature for fear of someone rear ending me, or at least causing a road rage incident.
Nobody drives like that anyway, pretty useless feature.
Click to expand...
Had a Limited Expedition XL rental that did this a month ago in Florida. It would change speed depending on road signs (or gps position or whatever) and it had a user settable variable where it would change to the new speed PLUS 9mph over what the sign showed. The previous renter must have set it 9mph over. It too quite a bit of digging in the settings to set it to the actual speed limit and not the PLUS amount when it changed speed, which I wasn't comfortable with. No idea if the brake lights came on when it slowed from a higher speed limit to a lower speed limit, but it was abrupt. It would keep itself in the lane and with the adaptive cruise, basically drive itself but I had to touch the steering wheel every 10 seconds or so not to get a warning.
 
I just got done with a 1400-mi rental stint from Vegas to SF, SLO, and back in an MB GLC300, and there were some "weird" to me things I noticed. It did not have adaptive cruise.

When adjusting cruise speed down in 1mph increments, the car coasted. If you pulled the lever down to get a 5mph reduction, the brakes engaged and the brake lights came on. I believe the Fords I've rented with adaptive do the same thing, in addition to illuminating the brake lights any time the car slows for traffic ahead, even if it's just 1mph that it slows.

Personally, I am very aware of the fact that ANY time brake lights come on, traffic behind you is impacted in a negative way (think: caterpillar slowdowns where there was nothing going on except some JA that tapped his brakes), and people that tap their brakes for reasons that are not related to actually having to slow down, including simply disengaging their cruise control, are a pet peeve of mine. So, when I see slower traffic ahead, or a car is coasting, I coast as well but resist all urges to tap the brakes unless I am actually going to be slowing down a significant amount.

I think that mandating yellow turn signals and red brake lights would do much more for actual safety rather than these other measures, but I also think that the turns and the brake lights should be in the same general location- nothing makes me go "how the F did these Hyundai/Kia/etc engineers ever think that turn signals BELOW the bumper is a good idea?" That location makes more sense as a hazard flasher than a turn signal, especially considering that those signals are most times blocked completely if the vehicle is using a hitch-mounted cargo carrier!
 
tcp71 said:
I had to touch the steering wheel every 10 seconds or so not to get a warning.
Click to expand...
If you simply leave one hand "hanging" on the wheel with slight pressure, the system will continually correct the lane position and will not give you the warning. I drove an Expedition like that all the way across WY, SD, and MT without a single warning once I figured that trick out; I usually kept pressure towards the side of the road with less traffic- towards the right side on 2-lanes, and towards the median when on divided highways when I was in the left lane 😉
 
It was perhaps 50 years ago (1960?-1970?), taxi cabs in San Francisco were experimenting with an amber bumper mounted, center rear warning light. IIRC, it would blink when the cab was off the throttle and would turn solid when the brake was applied.

Found it:

Rear-End Collisions Reduced: A Large-Scale Experiment under Natural Conditions

A deceleration warning light system installed on taxicabs in San Francisco for 12.3 million miles of normal on-road driving reduced the rear-end collision rate by 60.6% compared to the rate for a concurrent control group of cabs which traveled 7.2 million miles. Comparing the experimental group with
www.sae.org www.sae.org
 
paulo57509 said:
It was perhaps 50 years ago (1960?-1970?), taxi cabs in San Francisco were experimenting with an amber bumper mounted, center rear warning light. IIRC, it would blink when the cab was off the throttle and would turn solid when the brake was applied.

Found it:

Rear-End Collisions Reduced: A Large-Scale Experiment under Natural Conditions

A deceleration warning light system installed on taxicabs in San Francisco for 12.3 million miles of normal on-road driving reduced the rear-end collision rate by 60.6% compared to the rate for a concurrent control group of cabs which traveled 7.2 million miles. Comparing the experimental group with
www.sae.org www.sae.org
Click to expand...
Sounds like it would be easier to just give an IQ test before the driving test. If you don’t score at least an A on both tests, sorry but this driving thing just isn’t gonna work out for you…
 
atikovi said:
Don't tailgate and it won't be a problem.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. I posted the comment on Alec's video.

I actually followed an I5 the other day tooling through the North GA countryside WELL back from them and there were several times where the I5 slowed down quick enough that it required a harder press than usual for me to slow down. I'm talking 10-15 car lengths back from them.

Nothing near an accident from me, but it is highly annoying to have them slow down that fast with no brake lights. They should be on doing their job, alerting following traffic that they are slowing down.
 
coasting or mild engine braking (coasting with a manual in gear) i don't think you need brake lights for that. decelerating much harder than that you should probably tap the brakes (or if it's adaptive cruise the car should put on the brake lights)
 
SubieRubyRoo said:
Sounds like it would be easier to just give an IQ test before the driving test. If you don’t score at least an A on both tests, sorry but this driving thing just isn’t gonna work out for you…
Click to expand...
This was a long time ago....maybe 1990.

A friend and I just parked and were walking into a sandwich shop. My friend picked up a blue sheet of paper that blew by.

When he looked at it, he started to laugh and handed it to me.

It was a carbon copy of someone's DMV driving test score sheet. The number "36 - FAIL" was written at the top and circled. Among the items that I can recall:
  • Failure to stop at a stop sign.
  • Crossing a double yellow.
  • Driving too slow.
Yes, there was a person's name on the paper.
 
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