Light and Productivity: The Secret of an Ideal Stop-Light
In the time of global automobilization when traffic is tight as never before accidents at braking are one of the most widely spread phenomena in the automotive world. The generally accepted means of avoiding such accidents – stop-lights – are not ideal at the moment.
Even at a slight push of the brakes the modern cars’ stop-lights come to work. When driving in a tight traffic drivers push brakes not for full stops but to snub or regulate the distance between the car in front of them. Thus the work of stop-light doesn’t give the useful information to the goes that drives behind. The same thing happens when the driver removes his foot from the accelerator pedal. This action also causes stop-lights to start working. In both the cases – when driving in a tight traffic – stop-lights work way too often and the drivers stop paying any attention to them. And it naturally causes their distraction when the situation truly needs fast breaking.
The majority of manufacturers try to solve the problem by “frontal” methods – increase the brightness, size and quantity of stop-lights. The rear end of many cars looks like a red toreador’s cloak. But do you really think that makes driving in traffic more comfortable?
Mercedes engineers went the other way: in order to decrease the number of accident they suggested equipping the cars with stop-lights that blink in order to attract the attention of the drivers from behind. However it seems that such novelties are more of a distraction and irritant than a real help in traffic. At the same time BMW engineers suggested adaptive stop-lights system. The system aims to reduce the danger of an accident from behind at hard braking by increasing the area of the signal glowing.
Special sensors – accelerometers - measure the degree of the car’s braking and while it is low, the stop-lights work in the normal mode, but if it gets high, the additional sections of lights come to work. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the major problem of stop-lights remains – high degree of useless illumination. As for the additional sections at hard braking, their effect is very doubtful: in a situation like this the count goes by split seconds and in the blinking of dozens of stop-lights a driver is simply unable to react fast.
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