A new study suggests that putting brake lights on the front of cars could help prevent road accidents and make driving safer for everyone.
While brake lights on the back of vehicles are standard, the idea of front brake lights has been discussed for years but never adopted by car makers.
Now, researchers from Graz University of Technology in Austria and the Bonn Institute for Legal and Traffic Psychology in Germany have taken a closer look at how effective they could be.
The research team studied 200 real-life accidents at road intersections in Austria.
They carefully reconstructed each crash and then used computer simulations to see what might have happened if the vehicles had front brake lights.
The results were promising. Depending on how quickly drivers could react, between 7.5% and 17% of the crashes could have been avoided. In many other cases, the front brake lights would have at least reduced the speed of the impact, which might have helped prevent serious injuries.
So how would front brake lights help?
When a car starts braking, the lights would signal this to oncoming drivers, and possibly to drivers approaching from the side.
If the lights go off, it could also show that the car is about to move again. This extra information helps other road users react faster, giving them more time to slow down or stop.
The simulations showed that when drivers had this early warning, they reacted quicker and needed less distance to stop.
This could make a big difference in busy areas like intersections, where many accidents happen because drivers don’t have enough time to notice what others are doing.
In their study, the researchers suggested using green lights at the front instead of red to avoid confusion with existing rear brake lights.
These lights could also be added to the sides of cars, especially since about one-third of the accidents in the study involved vehicles approaching from angles where the front lights wouldn’t have been visible.
Although front brake lights have only been tested in a field study in Slovakia so far, the findings from this accident simulation study suggest they could be a low-cost and effective way to reduce accidents and injuries on the road.
More research and testing are needed, but the idea might be worth serious consideration by car manufacturers and road safety experts.
