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Tail lights are traditionally coloured red, so as to
distinguish them from brake lights which are... oh, red.
So. Red means stop. Therefore brake lights are
appropriately coloured. Tail lights are to inform you that a
car is there, and not braking. So, green would be more
appropriate...
on a busy motorway you'd look ahead and
see a sea of green in good conditions, giving you the
reassurance of a journey well planned. However, the colour
change to red would be much clearer for great distances or
in poor visibility, allowing you to take appropriate action.
Here in america, some indicators are simply flashing tail
lights... so indicators: Red, brake lights: Red, tail lights:
Red, madness.
The situation for the colour blind would remain unchanged.
Red light night vision myth
http://stlplaces.co...ht_vision_red_myth/
[spidermother, Oct 31 2012]
Rogaining - the sport of applying a cream to your head?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogaining
[normzone, Nov 01 2012]
*this really exists*
http://www.igrowlas...jrrMCFY1DMgodmHMAzA
It's not even a real laser, just red LEDs. [DIYMatt, Nov 01 2012]
Chromatic aberration in the eye
http://lo.um.es/pan...ias/adjuntos/78.pdf
[spidermother, Nov 02 2012]
Rhodopsin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodopsin
"Visual purple" [8th of 7, Nov 02 2012]
[link]
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I think the general idea is that you need to
slow/stop as you approach either, whereas confusing
green tail lights with a green traffic signal would be
bad. |
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How about yellow for steady speed taillights, deepening to orange as you shed speed without braking, being green while you accelerate and red as you brake? |
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For an extra fee, you can choose your own color scheme, much like custom license plates. The rule against white light to the rear and strobes remains. |
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I'd propose sticking with red simply because it doesn't ruin
your night vision when you're driving behind somebody. |
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Like the idea, don't like the color choice. |
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I say red (for the nightvision as Alt said) to blue when you put on the brakes. |
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White in front, red in back that turns to blue when you brake. That seems to make the most sense. |
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//red ... night vision// (Link) |
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//(link)//
"It takes a while for true night vision to be recovered. About 10 minutes for 10%, 30-45 minutes for 80%, the rest may take hours, days, or a week." |
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Yeah, um, do you have a link to back up that link? If red light is really a myth (which is possible) then it must be the most widely believed myth in the history of ever, and I'm going to need at least a link to a .edu to confirm. |
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Re:link, sorry, I'm not buying it. If you must use a light, a
red light is the easiest on your nightvision. I'm going
hillbilly on this one, so no amount of fancy science talk
will sway me. |
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There are plenty of astonishingly prevalent myths (or at least, erroneous oversimplifications) - Red-Green-Blue colour vision, the musical 'note', and separate regions on the tongue for sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, for example. People are just not that critical unless they make a deliberate effort. (Except for us Scorpios - we don't get sucked in by superstitious nonsense). |
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Green is in the middle of the visible spectrum
for humans, and would make sense, as it
would shift to the blue as the vehicle is
approached, but to the red if it was "getting
away". |
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Does two+ decades of tramping around in the woods and
learning through experience that red flashlights are better
for your night vision than white or green flashlights qualify
as 'deliberate effort'? Sue me if I'm more inclined to
believe years of personal experience than something
somebody posted on the internet without citing supportive
references. |
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It's possible that it's the dimness, and the monochromaticity, rather than the redness per se. I once made and used a red LED torch for rogaining. It seemed to work well (little loss of night vision), but it may have been for the above reasons. I found that article confronting too, but it does seem technically correct as far as I can tell. |
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In most city and motorway driving, I don't think night
vision is a factor. In fact, if you can differentiate
colour, you're not using your true night vision. |
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Light sensing technology is baked, on laptops and
smartphones, simply tune the tail lights to maintain a
certain intensity above ambient. All 'Night Vision'
problems solved. |
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Also, Blue, daft colour. What would the emergency
services use? |
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//It takes a while for true night vision to be recovered. About 10 minutes for 10%, 30-45 minutes for 80%, the rest may take hours, days, or a week.// |
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I think this rebuttal is somewhat undermined by citing a duration greater than 1 day as the period required for full recovery of "true night vision". In practice, any improvement in low-light vision over about 8 hours won't be a benefit to seeing at night (ignoring fairly stringent and specialised conditions, like wearing blackout patches from well before dawn to well after dusk for a week). |
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I originally liked the idea but I think both blue and
green are a bit dodgy. |
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Lots of Green lights at a junction can be confusing
Lots of Blue lights make it hard to spot the emergency
services. |
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So the compulsory Yellow Flashing indicators as many
vehicles already have when they brake heavily would
be much clearer. Its like the whole motorway starts
flashing ahead of you. I often hit the hazards when I
am forced to brake rapidly on a motorway. |
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"rogaining"...I had to look that one up. I thought you had a special flashlight for putting hair loss prevention medication on your head (link). |
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I'm not sure why lots of green tail lights at a junction
would be any more confusing than lots of red lights
at a junction... you can tell which ones the traffic
lights are... few cars are mounted sideways on poles. |
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//rogaining// that looks like fun. How does one get into
this sport? Also, linky. |
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// It's possible that it's the dimness, and the
monochromaticity // |
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For your species, it's all about rhodopsin. |
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// I'm more inclined to believe years of
personal experience than something
somebody posted on the internet without
citing supportive references. // |
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You're a strange one, for sure. |
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//fun// It is. The pain only _really_ starts to settle in after the first 8 hours or so, which is handy. That's when, the second time, I thought, "Oh, *now* I remember why I decided never to do this again." |
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//// It's possible that it's the dimness, and the monochromaticity // |
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For your species, it's all about rhodopsin. // |
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The point is that dim light of any frequency won't destroy much rhodopsin, and that monochromatic light can give better clarity (obviously at the expense of colour rendering), partly because you eliminate chromatic aberration. |
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So... if there's a red-to-green colour change involved
with taillight-to-brakelight transition, won't it be
using fresh, unbleached cells in the retina, and
therefore convey more sensitivity? |
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No, because (in the context of night vision) it's the rods that suffer from bleaching, not the cones. But (as someone said in an annotation that seems to have gone) you're not usually relying on true night vision while driving anyway. That's what headlights and street lights are for. |
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//But (as someone said in an annotation that seems
to have gone) you're not usually relying on true night
vision while driving anyway.// |
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wait, I said that.. where's it gone? But yeah, if you
can tell what colour the lights are.. it's not night
vision. So indevidual colour fatigue applies, and
colour-change gives increased sensitivity. Like
having brighter lights... also your eyes are more
sensitive to green than red or blue. |
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In Vanuatu, all lights visible from the rear of the
vehicle are required to be green. This includes
reversing lights, and the interior lights of cars with
rear windows. |
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I was under the impression that the curvature of the retina eliminated chromatic aberration (apart from if you're wearing glasses, etc). I suppose different wavelengths still have different focal points, reducing your sharpness. 'Dispersion' is probably a better word for it though. |
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The human eye does have chromatic aberration (which is, of course, caused by dispersion) (Link). |
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Visible light is so restrictive. Why not ultra violet as an additional tail
light? |
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The benefits would include the possibility of a tan whilst stuck in
traffic, a weird glow from surrounding objects as well as attracting
bees who would think the lights are flowers. |
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How about radio waves at the same time? |
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"We interrupt this programme to tell you that the car in front is
slowing down" |
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Thinking about the junction, If I get one false positive
and try to drive across a junction, straight into the car
ahead who lets say has one faulty rear light.
I think this this has to be more risk than slowing down
when approaching a row of cars with red lights by
thinking that this might be a red light. |
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Flashing orange is the way ahead. |
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