Comments by "Laurence Fraser" (@laurencefraser) on "Electric cars prove we need to rethink brake lights" video.

  1.  @seraphina985  I'm not seeing why you'd want the brake lights on when the car is just stopped. The tail lights, at night, sure, but why the brake lights? They tell you that the car is decerating. If it's stationary (that is, not in motion) it's not decelerating. So what are the brake lights actually telling other drivers in those circumstances? I'm also not sure why you'd care what the driver was Intending to do, save perhaps as a back up if the sensors intended to engage the lights based on what the car is Actually doing should happen to fail (and only then, because if the two are in conflict then what the car is Actualy doing is the important information).
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  2. You do run into the issue that the standard configuraiton is tailight = red, brake light = double intensity red. (usually this is done by having two lights in the module, with the break light control powering both of them while the tail light control only powers one) Brakelights often, but not always, include extra red lights (near the top of the vehicle) as well, which the tail lights generally don't, but that's very much an optional extra. Also that dimmer systems have (at least in the past) typically worn out faster. Oh, and flashing amber indicator lights have specific meanings (whether it be only on one side or the other (turning), both (hazard) or spinning on the roof (also hazard, but of a rather different sort)), which interacts poorly with the rather dumb idea that is using the car's red brake lights as turn signals even without flashing Red lights actually having a distinct meaning. All quite fixable, of course (and most places don't even have that last problem because, well, they don't do the dumb 'red turn signal' thing.)
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  3. Anything being updated 'over the air' is something to avoid like the plague unless it both demands your confirmation before begining and actually informs you of what it is doing (in a way that isn't going just producing a gibberish character string that you'd need several degrees and a manual they won't provide you with in order to understand)*. Because 'over the air fix' can be, and in a number of cases HAS been, indisitinguishable from 'over the air sabotage'. Fortunately, to my understanding, this has yet to cause major problems with cars, but there have certainly been appliances and 'smart' home systems that have suffered from this effect. Very convenient... right up until you suddenly can't actually use the thing anymore... especially if the update broke the updater and the company that controlled it went out of business (or got bought out by someone else who cancled the product/service) before the issue could be corrected... (and hey, want to give odds on how such issues interact with Warrenties?!). *Oh, and if you can't use the thing as it was Pre Update without allowing the change, baring instances where the thing is flat out unsafe without said change I suppose, the confirmation dialogue is Useless because every user ever is going to hit 'yes' if their car will not leave the garrage without the software update when they need to get to work... Or similar issues with other devices. No matter how terrible an idea it is.
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  4. Properly speaking, if the vehicle is actually Stopped, it's not decelerating, so the lights shouldn't be triggered by accelerometer controls when it's at rest anyway.
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