I love this car, but here are the top 3 dumbest things about it:

[rcorea]

I agree. Navigation software is way behind others

[DipnX5]

Originally Posted by JCL

Thanks marcx5. I read it, and found it interesting, but it is an essay, by a consultant, and one who likes to use words like disambiguate. While I realize it is a real word, it does tend to label the author as a professional essayist. The whole thing is theoretical (one definition of a consultant: a guy who knows 50 ways to make love, but doesn't know any women)

The consultant concludes that he expects that changing the lights would reduce fender benders. He has no data. Others thought it would be valid theory to check, and so they researched it. They found out that the claim was not supported by the data (see my link for one example).

The most obvious reason not to have amber rear turn signals is that it is then impossible to determine which way another vehicle is travelling. You have introduced directional confusion in an attempt to alleviate turn signal confusion. That is the basis for requiring heavy trucks to have amber lights up front, and red at the rear. It is equivalent to red and green running lights on a vessel.

You note that amber is more visible. In fog, yes. However, which gets more attention? Amber means caution, red means danger. People pay more attention to red lights, it is programmed into them.

In essence, an attentive following driver responds to any rear light warning by quickly determining what the risk is, and responding. Any light will do, it gets attention. In the example in the essay, the following driver can see only one brake light, and isn't sure if it is a turn signal (meaning he is coming into your lane) or a brake light (he is stopping). The correct response to both is to cover the brake, check for room to avoid the car, etc.

We could make it interesting and analyze whether adaptive brake lights convey more information by virture of their frequency, irrespective of their colour.

Cheers

Jeff