Front brake lights could significantly reduce the number of traffic accidents
The front brake light concept has been around for some time, but no car manufacturer has implemented it yet. A research team led by Ernst Tomasch from the Institute of Vehicle Safety at the Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in collaboration with the Bonn Institute of Legal and Traffic Psychology (BIRVp) analysed the effect of front brake light on road safety in an accident representation study.
Analysis of 200 actual accidents at road junctions showed that depending on the reaction time of road users, 7.5 to 17% of collisions would have been avoided with an extra brake light at the front of the vehicle. In up to a quarter of cases, the front brake light would also have reduced the speed of impact and thus reduced injuries.
Front brake lights signal to road users coming from the countercurrent and, to some extent, road users approaching from the side, that a vehicle is braking and, if the front brake lights go out, that a stopped vehicle could start moving.
This visual signal can significantly reduce the reaction time of other road users. This reduces the distance needed to stop and ultimately the possibility of an accident, Ernst Tomasch says.
As vehicles with front brake lights have so far only been used in real road traffic conditions in the context of a field test in Slovakia, researchers have had to resort to a combination of reconstruction and simulation of accidents. They used 200 road accidents at Austrian road junctions recorded in the Central Database for In-Depth Accident Study (CEDATU).
Initially, the sequence of events of all accidents was reconstructed in detail. The researchers then simulated the events again, assuming that vehicles coming from secondary roads were equipped with a front brake light. If the front brake light was visible to road users on the priority road, a faster reaction was considered in the simulation, thereby reducing the distance needed to stop the car. From the differences between actual accidents and simulations, the researchers came to conclusions about the outcome of accident prevention.
The front brake lights could be lit in green instead of red and can be easily integrated into the design of the vehicles. Existing vehicles could also be upgraded relatively cheaply, suggests Tomasch who adds:
However, front brake lights only have a positive effect if other road users can actually see them. This did not occur in about a third of the reconstructed accidents due to the unfavourable angle between the vehicles involved. We recommend, therefore, that you place the brake lights on the sides of the vehicles as well and investigate the possible additional effect.
