Advanced brake lights

A team of students at Virginia tech are working on brake lights that tell drivers behind you if your car is slowing down or how hard you’re breaking.

The thing that interests me the most about the system is that it had to be designed so that people who have never seen it before will be able to understand it within a matter of seconds. The team seems to have approached it really intelligently. Anyone who’s sat in front of a traffic light can identify yellow as “caution” and red as “stop”. Furthermore, we tend to associate flashing signals and brighter shades of color with increasing urgency. Both these common senses can be exploited to develop smarter break lights that even uninitiated people can understand.

I’ve got an entire folder in my bookmarks titled “why didn’t I think of that”. This innovation can proudly join its ranks.