Oh boy - another thread about modifying lighting at the rear of the car.
I have some concerns about whether or not it is a good idea to do this. Please keep an open mind, this is just my opinion, and I'm posting it to share it with you and give you some food for thought, not to shove it down your throat.
One of the few good things that has come out of all the government regulation of the automobile industry in the last 30 years has been standardization of some key specifications for external appearance of what you could call "warning lights" (brake lights, turn signals, clearance lights, etc.) on all vehicles.
The specs themselves are very lengthy, and I won't repeat them here, but suffice to say that the reason you get the same "warning signal" - by this I mean the same colour of the warning light, same position of the light, same range of visibility of the light, and same intensity of the light - on all cars out there is because all of the above mentioned items are very precisely spec'ed out.
If we, as owners, change the apperance of these lights that are used by others, (we don't look at our own external warning lights), we risk causing all sorts of safety problems on the road. First is increased reaction time from other drivers, as they try to figure out what the "different" light signal means. In addition, we can cause vision difficulties for others (think about older drivers whose eyes might not recover so rapidly from the increased light intensity, particularily if they have been sitting behind your car at a traffic light for a while).
Fog light lenses are designed to send an intense and narrowly focused beam of light straight back behind the car. Brake light lenses are designed to spread out a more diffused beam of light, while still meeting an international spec for light intensity radiated straight back. If you consider that the bulb in the fog light is at least twice as bright as a brake light, and all that light is concentrated in one direction... well, you get the idea.
My own feeling is that when we modify our cars (and I really like modifying my car), we need to consider which modifications might have a negative impact on other motorists we share the road with. Although at first glance, the idea of increasing the intensity of the brake lights might sound like a good idea, when you think about the negative safety impact this modification has, it kind of loses its attractivness. Or, to put it another way, the kid with the blue turn signals on his Honda thinks the look is sharp, but the hundreds of drivers who look at his turn signal every day and have to take the extra time to figure out what that visual signal means are probably less impressed.
Like I said at the beginning, I'm only posting this to give those who are considering the mod some food for thought, I'm not dissing those who have done it, and I certainly am not trying to start a flame war.
Michael
