Brake lights for cars, version 2.0

Students from Virginia Tech have created “smart” brake lights for cars that glow and flash differently depending on what the car is doing.

The system can alert drivers behind you in different ways to show them if you are slowing down, about to stop, and how hard you’re pressing the pedal. It uses a horizontal array of LED lights to create the light show behind your car.

When you begin to slow down, the lights glow orange. After a certain threshold, when you’re about to stop, the side lights glow red. If you’re slamming on the brakes and the cars behind you need to be alerted, the lights will all flash red.

The team behind the project hopes to see their system on commercial vehicles in the future, and we couldn’t agree more. It would take a lot of the guesswork away when driving behind bad drivers. [via Engadget]