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Old October 14th 04, 04:24 PM
Steve
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Daniel J. Stern wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Oct 2004, Steve wrote:
>
>
>>>Pick your badness! Do you want the "brake, tail and turn signal functions
>>>all lumped into one lamp, which can give only one signal at a time, and if
>>>it fails, you lose all functions on that side" badness?

>>
>>My '69 has 3 lamps per side, actually. Built-in redundancy. Problem solved.

>
>
> Halfassedly.
>
> "If it fails, you lose all functions on that side" problem solved.
>
> "Can give only one signal at a time" problem UNsolved. If all a
> surrounding driver can see is one side or the other, and you are stepping
> on the brakes AND signalling for a turn or lanechange in the direction of
> the only rear lamp he can see, all he sees is your blinker, NOT your brake
> light.Half the problem solved.


And so how should one respond differently to a blinker or a brake?
Either one means "this car is slowing down" so its pretty much a moot
point, especially since both rear lamps (and the CHMSL) are going to be
simultaneously visible 99% of the time.

OTOH, seeing amber in limited visibility conditions implies "approaching
vehicle" which is flat-out false in the case of amber rear turn signals.
Meaning you have to rely on simultaneously seeing headlamps or taillamps
to resolve THAT ambiguity. You're just trading one ambiguity for
another, and I'd argue that the "signal or brake" ambiguity isn't
particularly dangerous since you should assume that the car is slowing
to a near-stop (at least) under either condition. The fact of the matter
is that BOTH systems work perfectly well, both have done so for over 50
years, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a statistically
different number of collisions based on the color of the rear turn
signals, except for the "duelling reds" design you mentioned before.
(That's your open invitation to prove me wrong.) :-)
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