The adaptive brake lights is a fine idea but not the brilliant idea. An international road use and road traffic standard is to engage the hazzards (double trafic indicator) when you encounter a situation that makes it impossible to move, maneuver or act normally.

In my opinion, BMW should incorporate this standard in their design in addition to the adaptive brake lights, the hazzards should flash at a higer tempo and continue say 10 - 15 seconds after forced braking just to immediately catch the attention of the rear driver. The adptive brake lights can be deceptive to the rear driver. I beleive this is the concept Mercedes adopts when you suddenly brake. Any thoughts?

 

Engaging the hazard lights automatically is without a doubt a better solution than BMW's adaptive brake light system alone. Alas, automatic hazard light illumination during hard braking is illegal here in Finland. Our Citro?n C2 is equipped with such a device but it was disactivated at the importer.

 

Why?

 

Yes I like that. Adaptive braking is actually too slow to react for my taste. By the time ABS kicks in it'll really not do much good for the driver behind. I want the Adaptive breaking to kick in earlier. Like if you slow the car down by X amount of speed or apply X amount of pressure when the car is moving at speeds above 45 or somthing... a lower threshold to activate the Adaptive breaking.

Your idea... or mercedes idea of having hazzards blink at a higher rate for 15 seconds is a good one too. Theres waaaaaay too many un attentive drivers on the road here now. I want as much to get their attention as possible.

I myself use the hazzard manually sometimes when I break harder than usual and cars are comming up from behind faster... Preception of if a car is stopped and is moving from far away is hard to tell.

 

Red Hat Man,

Are you working for BMW marketstink? I've seen you create a few "marketing" survey here. Anyway, it's a good way to feedback to BMW.

 

BetterMakeWay, illegal wasn't maybe the right choice. In fact, I'm not sure whether it is or isn't illegal - what I know is that the importer disables the system. Thus I wisely came up that such lights are illegal Not sure, not sure. I can check it out if you'd like.

 

Well, the E60 already have adaptive brake lights!

If you brake hard enough the second set of brake
lights will activate and gives a really bright light.

But who needs emergency (blinking hazard lights)?
There's a risk of inflation...