Third brake light, Increased safety. Options

[914Toy]

Reacting to the awful rear end collision reported this week here on World, I think a third brake light install is a low cost serious safety upgrade, Here is a question for SPOKE, how about suggesting or better, supplying a "blinking" relay(?) to wire in series with a third brake light power supply? Thus always, but only making the third brake light "blink' when the brake light is on via the brake pedal, to get the attention of these idiot texting drivers.

[TomE]

Matt and I have discussed this several times. Does anyone know or would it be state by state. Can the break light strobe for a few seconds before turning solid? Either way we are going to do a third brake light on the teeners and I am going to add one to my 911.

[Superhawk996]

Does anyone know or would it be state by state. Can the break light strobe for a few seconds before turning solid?

Prohibited by FMVSS 108. Where you see it being done, it is technically illegal.

Mercedes has petioned several times to get small scale exemption to study the safety effects in US. Denied by US Gov't that is too dumb to get out of its own way despite feature having been deployed in Europe for over a decade. In Europe, the flashing is only triggerd in high deceleration, emergency stopping scenarios.

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2...on-from-federal

Lest you think they have gotten smarter since 2005-2008 era petititon by Mercedes.
https://bmw.oemdtc.com/733/brake-lights-fla...bmw-motorcycles

Here's what they have to say about the BMW recall:

"What could happen?
During emergency (hard) braking, the stop lamp flashes which is not allowed in the US market due
to a Federal requirement. A flashing brake lamp could be confusing to drivers following an affected
motorcycle, and could increase the risk of a crash."

Hypocritcal given NHTSA has no real public data that has been shared with OEM's and NHTSA refuses to allow any study of high-G flashing brake lamps on public roads but yet they allow Tesla's out on public roads to study Auto Pilot / FSD (full self driving) which has lead to multiple fatalites. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif)

US Gov't also inept with respect to forward illumination. Rest of World gets active headlap illumination that is able to more brightly illuminate the roadway while shielding oncoming drivers from high beam. This is done via active mirrors and/or active LED matrix. US literally decades behind. Same as was the case when Europe migrated to Halogen bulbs way back in late 60's or early 70's yet US remained in the dark ages (pun intended) of sealed beam headlaps until 80's.