Drving to work this morning in the heavy snowfall we're having was, to say the least, interesting. There was *one* lane on the interstate that wasn't completely obscured from sight by snow and ice. Between the heavy snowfall and the dense clouds of snow being kicked up behind vehicles ahead of me, there were several times when their tail-lights were completely blacked out and I couldn't see them. At all. We're talking tractor-trailers here.

This scared the hell out of me.

My idea is for a system that recognizes low-visibility conditions and automatically brightens the tail-lights accordingly.

This may require changing the color of the brake-lights to avoid confusion.
-- 21 Quest, Nov 30 2006

How about telescoping tail-lights that raise up over the trunk of the car and the snow?
-- xandram, Nov 30 2006


Hm.... now that's not a bad idea!
-- 21 Quest, Nov 30 2006


How a bought changing the tail light ant the brake lights.
-- dev45, Nov 30 2006


How about a set of red fog lights below the rear bumper?
-- Jscotty, Nov 30 2006


My Audi has a rear fog light, but you have to manually turn it on.
-- craigts, Nov 30 2006


Here in the North, many tractor-trailers are not allowed to use LED lights for exactly this reason. Incandescent bulbs burn hot enough to melt the snow off the covers; LEDs don't. A case where less efficient is actually better.
-- Bukkakinator, Jun 02 2008


umm... so in the dark it gets brighter...
-- FlyingToaster, Jun 02 2008


They don't do this? They should.
-- doctorremulac3, Sep 08 2022


//Incandescent bulbs burn hot enough to melt the snow off the covers; LEDs don't. A case where less efficient is actually better.//

Sounds like a bad idea. They should be required to use incandescent bulbs OR heaters for the bulb covers that work in the winter.
-- Voice, Sep 08 2022


Another option, if manual, would be to include a hole near each tail light. And headlights, why not - insert a flare into all of them. Either the car can self-ignite the flares or you can stop the car and go around and use a lighter.

Everyone will see you then!

It's not automatic but if you are already geared up to put chains on it is a similar effort with less grunting.
-- mylodon, Sep 15 2022


Stopping every 15 minutes to light the next set of flares or insert a new flare cartridge could get tedious. On the other hand, fire. fire. Fire! fire. hehe firefire. fire.
-- Voice, Sep 15 2022



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