Can we please stop it with sequential turn signals?
- Thread starter Klutch9
- Start date
This is exactly it. There are studies on this. Recently it's been studied that LEDs light up faster causing fewer accidents.
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
Yes, what we have is a very rapid strobe for a second and then it’s normal. The other brake lights are normal.
As for the various turn signals - like everything - some have pulled it off well - some not so much …
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
Yep. Years ago - I was in traffic and an Escalade had the only LED system in front of me. Obviously faster and more visible …
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
The other thing is that many are doing sequential from a one piece. All these years later - our Mustang retains these:
Vehicle lighting is a safety system, and there are human factors/psychology behind how people see, interpret, and react to lighting on a subconscious level, something most people don't comprehend, nor respect.
Combine that with a degree of selfishness, cheap gizmos, and pseudo-scientific marketing, especially in the aftermarket lighting segment, and the results are entirely predictable, as in not desirable.
Combine that with a degree of selfishness, cheap gizmos, and pseudo-scientific marketing, especially in the aftermarket lighting segment, and the results are entirely predictable, as in not desirable.
However it's done, sequential lighting had to be designed and paid for, raising the cost of your vehicle.
In my opinion, they fall into "showroom (or TV commercial)" options.
The pulsing CHMSL, a simple add-on-like a motorcycle's headlight modulator-seems OK in theory.
Frankly, I don't seee many of them whilst driving.
Also, I too do not want "dealership untouchables" monkeying with anything on my car.
In my opinion, they fall into "showroom (or TV commercial)" options.
The pulsing CHMSL, a simple add-on-like a motorcycle's headlight modulator-seems OK in theory.
Frankly, I don't seee many of them whilst driving.
Also, I too do not want "dealership untouchables" monkeying with anything on my car.
It helps to wake up day dreaming car jockey's so I don't get run over on my murdercycle that only has one brake light. LED tailight assy. on it also.
I also first saw them on a '67 or '68 Mercury Cougar. I had no idea how they worked.
Some years later I was given a '69 Imperial. The turn signals didn't work. I bought a factory service manual (this was in the mid-'80s, pre-internet) and learned that the turn signals were supposed to be sequential, and were driven by a wax-encased electric motor in the trunk. By that time the sequencer was NLA, so I bypassed it and wired in an electronic flasher instead.
The cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s that had sequential turn signals used an electromechanical system that was prone to breakage and wear. That was why they fell out of favor. The 1972–1976 Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar had conventional rear turn signals, but the styling of the rear lamps strongly suggested that sequential turn signals were originally intended for those cars.
I had two Mustangs with secuencial analog lamps that looked awesome and unique. Don't car much for alot of the newer LED designs.
The light shows are simply some lines of programming code. The cost in state-of-the-art lighting are the complex (software-controlled) fixtures, which have many more elements/components and ornamental features than the simple bulb+parabolic reflector+lens lights of the past.
But there can be some cost benefit in harmonization of the hardware, where a single, universal fixture can be programmed to meet varied regulations by employing certain elements, or combination of elements, to meet the photometric requirements of a specific market.
Look closely, and the vehicles with sequential signals do retain a stationary flashing element, which is required to satisfy the regs. With the sequential part, I'm not certain offhand whether they are explicitly permissible, or just implicitly, which allows them to be used in practice.
Then, for the sake of argument, why stop with brake lights? Maybe some intrepid traffic signal engineer in one town can have their red lights pulse, or the yellow pulse, since that will garner more alertness and in theory be better, right? Another town may decide that a pulsing yellow is good enough. And so on…with every town having their own variation of red/yellow/green, instead of the single, universal practice.
Moar/different is justified, because it's better, no?
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