Cool option for our cars. I've been thinking about Hazards, side markers/blinkers and an LED flashing light for a 3rd brake light for my 62. Can never be too safe now that I'm back in Cali.

Hazard flashers are a good idea. Side marker lights are a good idea -- the round 1968 Mopar items look great on just about any pre-'68 Mopar, though they're expensive if you're buying new. When side markers became required equipment for the '68 model year, the market was flooded with retrofit products. One of the first, and by far the most popular, was the № 125 from Peterson Manufacturing. Nicely designed, nicely made, easy to install. They still make it in amber for the front and red for the rear. Tough to beat the price, and because it's a 2-wire lamp you can easily put in the brighter № 2886X bulb (send me a PM) and wire the front ones up as described here to do double-duty as side markers and side turn signal repeaters.

A 3rd brake light is a good idea. Upgrading the left and right brake lights is a good idea. But a flashing 3rd brake light is an extremely bad idea. It's an idea popular among con artists who feed off people's ignorance by claiming (without any basis in fact) that it's better/safer. It is not!

This is one of those ideas that seems like common sense: a flashing light has gotta be better at attracting attention. But the goal is not to attract attention, the goal is to reduce the chance of your being hit in traffic. The one does not necessarily lead directly to the other. Vehicle lights are there to convey a variety of messages to other drivers. That's why their operation is standardized: a steady dim red light is a taillight. A steady bright red light is a brake light. A blinking red or amber light is a turn signal. A steady white light means the car is coming toward you (whether that light is from the headlamps up front or the reversing lights in back). And so on. They all work about the same, so the message gets through clearly and immediately to other drivers. If you operate the lights in a nonstandard way, such as by flashing/blinking/strobing/"pulsing" the 3rd brake light, you force the driver behind you to decode the message. Because it's nonstandard, it's no longer immediately obvious, no matter how "common sensical" it might seem when you're thinking about it. That time to decode the message is time the driver's not yet on the brake to avoid hitting you. In plain English: mess with the standardized operation of car lights and you are increasing the likelihood of being hit. And that's why Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and SAE technical standards require brake lights (including the center 3rd one) to be steady-burning.

There is one exception: it's permitted to very rapidly strobe the brake lights—all three of them, not just the central one—under emergency (panic) heavy braking. The threshold in the law is set very high, so most drivers will never see this in traffic, and that's deliberate: if the brake lights flashed every time we step on the brake, or every time we were like "Oh, oops, I was about to miss that stop sign", the flashing lights would very quickly lose any ability they might have had to transmit a "HEY, EXTREME EMERGENCY HERE" message.

Flashing 3rd brake light: Don't. Just don't.

Also: All vehicle exterior lighting functions, even the ones that aren't mandatory (like daytime running lights and side turn signal repeaters in the USA, or central brake lights on cars made before 1986, etc) are highly specified as to their design, construction, numerous aspects of performance, durability, etc. It's far, far more detailed than just "Well, it's a red light facing rearward that comes on when I step on the brake, so it's a brake light" or "Well, it's white and it faces front and comes on when I start the car, so it's a DRL" or "Well, the eBay ad said brake light, so that's what it is". We do not get to just declare any ol' light into whatever function we want -- doing so is unsafe, even if we don't have to pass an inspection.

Homemade car lights: Don't. Just don't.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

As always super informative Dan. However in European markets, flashing brake lights are becoming very common and are making their way here in higher end cars with approval from the DOT.
Are we behind in lighting technology and signaling as usual in the North American Market because of outdated and poorly worded laws?

HI Dan, is there any way to fix the condition mentioned above after my flare stat install?

Thank you,

Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

No, sir, they aren't. The only flashing brake lights allowed in Europe are the ones I already described, that flash at 5 Hz under extremely severe (emergency) braking. There are no flash-all-the-time brake lights in Europe. Know how I know? Because a major part of my job is to keep close tabs on the vehicle lighting regulations as the develop and evolve around the world. I get my information directly from primary sources: the people who actually draw up, debate, decide, and promulgate the regs.



You have been misinformed, or you have misunderstood something you read. But even if you were right and flash-every-time-you-step-on-the-brake lights were common in Europe...we're not in Europe. We're in North America, sharing the roads with other North American drivers accustomed to how car signals work in North America. Again: if you introduce a nonstandard signal into the mix, it doesn't improve your safety, it worsens it. This is not a matter of guess or opinion, it's a matter of very well studied fact.



No, but that is a common misunderstanding fomented by clickbait mass-media articles about how the stupid, dumb ol' DOT won't let us have the superior, awesome European lights, etc. The reality is quite a lot more complicated than that. For one thing, it's definitely not the case that European car lighting (or European car lighting regs or specs or standards, etc) are better than the American methods and specs. There are individual things we can point to and say the European spec is better, and there are individual things we can point to and say the American spec is better. But overall, neither system is categorically better. Name a car light, any car light—shout it on out, brake lights, turn signals, headlamps, whatever—and I'll be happy to give you a thorough description of what's better about the American ones and what's better about the European ones.

Flash-every-time-you-step-on-the-pedal brake lights are not legal in Europe or in the US or Canada or Japan or Australia or any other country advanced enough to have such things as car safety regulations. Please drop the idea and back away unless you actually want to increase your odds of being rear-ended in traffic.

(I know this probably comes across like I'm a blowhard, knowitall jerk. I'm sorry, that is not my intent. Vehicle lighting is both my profession and my passion. It is life-safety equipment equipment we're talking about here, and while there is a fairly large range of performance allowed by the standards for every kind of car light, there really are right ways and wrong ways to do it.)

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

You don't. Doing so would be unsafe, because it would leave you unable to inform people behind you that you're slowing down if your flashers are on.

Put in one of these (see & buy here) and then you'll not only have a brake light that works even if the flashers are on, but you'll also be quite a bit safer even when the flashers aren't on.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Nope sounds good Dan and I wasn't really arguing the semantics of when the flashing lights come on, but the fact that they do exist for cars under extreme braking (ABS actuation, etc) but I'm glad you clarified.

I was giving this some thought as I was cruising around yesterday and it seems the easy way would be to have the lights fire off of a pressure sensitive switch plumbed into the brakes, so that way it only fires under heavy braking conditions.
Now that I am back in the Bay Area of California, inattentive driving is completely out of control and I tend to activate my flashers under heavy braking conditions to alert drivers behind of an impending stop from 60-70mph on the highway in the hopes that it will lessen my chances of getting punched in the rear by some asshat playing Pokeman while commuting.

Thanks for the insight dan.

Dan-0...
Thats exactly why i am adding the hazards to the 64.. with other obvious reasons.

I do and inted to drive this car.

Thanks all!
Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

It's been a while since i have added the four ways.

I have led lights in the front and rear now which presented some problems for the flashers.

The united pacific 90652 flasher with polarity reverse helped to get everything operating correctly again.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/upd-90652

Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack