Your Turn Signals Are Putting You in Danger

Forget airbags—the best way to survive any accident is to avoid having it in the first place. Thus, your car is a rolling arsenal of expensive safety equipment designed to prevent you from smashing into stuff. We tend to first think of things like electronic stability control and automatic emergency braking, but there are far more basic things keeping you safe, including headlights and horns. Even sun visors and windshield wipers, which seem more like convenience items, are actually there for safety. The aggregate contribution of these devices adds up to the incredibly complicated, technologically advanced modern car. Which is safer than ever... unless your car has red turn signals, in which case the maker of your car has put you in harm’s way.

This story originally appeared in the July 2020 issue of Road & Track.

Our government has known for decades that amber turn signals save lives. A 2008 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study concluded that, in the real world, cars with red turn signals are, on average, 22 percent more likely to be hit from behind than cars with amber indicators during a turn-signal-relevant maneuver such as turning, changing lanes, or parking. The following year, NHTSA did a second analysis to eliminate any inherent biases due to buyer characteristics, lens type, or even physical separation between red and amber elements. This time it limited the crash data to cars whose rear blinkers had switched color (from red to orange or vice-versa) in a midcycle face-lift, i.e. without changes to the body or the size and shape of the taillight housing itself. Conclusion: A change from red to orange accounts for a 5.3 percent reduction in rear-end collisions. By comparison, the third brake light mandated in 1986 reduces rear-end collisions by just 4.3 percent. That means switching the color of a turn signal’s bulb is 25 percent more effective than adding an entire additional brake light, yet NHTSA hasn’t issued any kind of mandate. The agency is finally contemplating adding amber turn signals to the list of criteria that adds up to a Five Star Safety Rating. This program has already encouraged automakers to equip their products with radar sensors so they can perform automatic emergency braking. That radar sensor is why even a base Toyota Corolla now has adaptive cruise control standard.

And that radar sensor is far more expensive than amber turn signals. Amber blinkers cost nothing in additional R&D, since almost every other country in the world already requires them. And while upgrading from red turn signals adds anywhere from a few cents to $10 per car, I bet you’d pay ten bucks extra if your $100,000 German luxury car could promise a 1-in-20 reduction in the likelihood of getting rammed from behind.

So as usual, it all comes down to money. This is especially frustrating when “premium” carmakers save a few pennies by using red turn signals (and therefore put their customers in statistically verified danger) at the same time they’re adding expensive things like radar sensors. Or worse, laser headlights.

There’s nothing wrong with laser lights, but draconian U.S. lighting regulations don’t allow us to take advantage of their additional light output in the first place. Laser lights are to LEDs what LEDs were to HIDs, and what HIDs were to halogen tungsten-filament lights. Each step up the ladder gives increased light output with less electric consumption. A laser headlight requires only about 10 watts of power, one-fifth of a halogen bulb, one-third of an HID, and half of an LED, all while emitting more light.

Efficiency is a significant benefit for EVs; it also means less waste heat, allowing smaller headlight housings and heatsinks. Additionally, the light source for lasers is incredibly small—about a third the size of an LED’s—allowing crisper beam-patterns and reducing the complexity of the reflectors. And this is just the beginning.

California-based SLD Laser, which produces the laser lights currently available in BMWs, is now showing off the next benefit of its technology: ultra-high-speed communication. Because lasers can be switched on and off incredibly quickly, they can be used to transmit data without the human eye detecting it. LiFi, as it’s called, could replace the cameras, radar, and LiDAR units that enable active cruise—and also transmit data at a blazing 20 gigabits per second. That would allow your car to “talk” to traffic signals, other cars, or even devices used by sight-impared pedestrians to warn them of an approaching car. What manufacturers call V2X communications.

But before we go that far, I have another proposed V2X communications solution: Maybe we could use laser lights on the back of a car to blink on and off slowly. Say, just once per second. This will tell the cars behind that it’s about to turn. We can call this amazing new device a “turn signal,” and it’ll probably reduce rear-end collisions by a significant margin. Or a significant margin plus 5.3 percent, if we make it flash in amber rather than red.

Where’s that smack-my-head emoji when you need it?

Jason Cammisa is an R&T contributing editor and our resident Illuminati. You can find more of his nerdism at @jasoncammisa on Instagram.

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