As of late the new LED tail and brake lights are painfully bright to me when I am imprisoned behind them at stoplights.
Granted, the new eyeglasses (sans scratches) soon to arrive will reduce the annoyance factor, but it still remains that all that lovely brightness is completely unnecessary once we are all stopped and snuggling nose to tail at the light like the social herd of quadrawheels that we are.
So here's my fix. At the rear of the other guy's car, one of the generation of autos that are produced with the LED taillights, is a sensor that communicates with a few of the processing cycles of one of the many computers onboard a late model car.
The wares, soft and hard, communicate to verify that the automobile is at a full stop, and has remained so for a given time period.
It polls the sensor and verifys that a bright light source (my car's headllights) has been observed at very close proximity in a static state behind the other guy's car for a given period of time, indicating that we are all snuggly close and nobody is going anywhere for a while.
It then lowers the intensity of the LED brake lights, in some fashionable series of steps, so that I do not have to put on my sunglasses while waiting for the light to change.
When the stoplight changes and the other guys car begins to roll, his brake lights automatically step back up to full intensity.-- normzone, Dec 01 2011 Might also just use a PV sensor so if it's a bright clear day it tones them down.. the whole point of being bright is so you can see them in poor visibility.-- metarinka, Dec 02 2011 I would make their intensity proportional to speed - when people are going slowly, they tend to be closer together and thus the same dazzle is experienced - only because you are moving you can't just look elsewhere.
Perhaps some fancy computer could do this, or a dynamo on the wheel would be all right (with a bypass to the battery for when stopped).-- TomP, Dec 02 2011 Most new cars that have LED brake lights already have back up sensors built into their bumpers. Those sensors could be polled to see the range and velocity of the car behind it. If the car behind is near and stopped, the brake lights are stepped down to be less painfully bright.-- crazyrog17, Dec 02 2011 I guess that if I'm going to place any trust at all in sensors and processors I could go there, [metarinka], [crazyrog17] & [TomP], but I confess that I structured the idea as I did because I was trying to minimize any safety risks.-- normzone, Dec 02 2011 [TomP]'s take seems easy - it's be directly proportional to your RPMs. No computers involved, just mechanics.
I've never had a problem with bright brake lights, but hey, if the only problems that got fixed were mine then the world would be a weird place.
(first post! woooo)-- BC, Dec 03 2011 Welcome to the Halfbakery, [BC]. Whatever happens in the near future, don't take it personally; it's just elitist swine like [The Alterother] trying to haze you.-- Alterother, Dec 03 2011 Excuse me, [BC] that was your first anno. When you post an idea, that will be your first post--then look out!! haha Nice to meet you.-- xandram, Dec 05 2011 Look, there goes another one!-- Alterother, Dec 05 2011 random, halfbakery