I wouldn't expect them to: they cannot see their own turn signal lights while driving.
If they happen to be behind another Mini, they already know about it and it may not throw them off-guard like others who aren't familiar with it.
That perfectly summarize the car industry. Manufacturers only care about the people in the car. It's not their problem if their car are death machines for everyone outside.
Volvo for instance, does a great job of thinking about safety in their cars, and so do the big three german manufacturers in my experience.
I was trying to find out if they blinked in the weird arrow pattern by configuring one online, but it's impossible to tell (they're not shown blinking).
Kinda surprising that they're not keen on selling potential customers on the upgrade.
There are plenty of image results searching "Mini rear lights" or similar.
If anyone at Mini sees their 2019 model sold N in the first 6 months, and their 2021 model sold N/2, does anyone at corporate ask the dealerships to explain?
I hope someone would care. What if 90% of potential buyers jumped off when they saw the mileage numbers. Or after the test drive. Or when they heard how long delivery would take.
You know, any process optimization whatsoever.
I always bought used cars and it's frustrating that, of course, the manufacturers/dealers only care about people buying new.
But now, having bought a new car, I realize they STILL don't care about my opinion, because people who care about the car-like-appliances they buy are in such a minority.
Car dealerships have scads of people lining up to throw money at them for the privilege of having a new car. Look at how various non-enthusiast vehicles become trendy and command huge markups -- eg, the Kia Telluride became the "it" child taxi a few years ago (replacing the Honda CRV) and every self-respecting parent simply HAD to pay thousands over sticker to have the latest status symbol.
Go try to buy a new car and the sales people simply don't seem to care about you wanting a difficult to find color combination from another dealer. They could source one if they wanted to, but they don't. They're catering to the masses who are simply to be allowed to buy a car sitting on the lot. They want to make as much money as possible from each sale; getting a marginal sale to someone who actually cares which option package or color they get simply isn't worth it. There are too few of "us" and too many of "them".
In the US, it's incredibly rare to people actually order a car from the factory the way they want it, because nobody is willing to wait. The buyer accepts that they 'have to' buy whatever is on the lot that day. With most cars, you have very few options you can even select from anyway; they're all bundled in packages of stuff you may or may not care about. To be fair, this is an industry-wide trend; having fewer SKUs, in retail parlance, makes a ton of sense. But I think it's particularly bad in the US.
Then, the options really aren't there anyway, depending on the brand. If I want the safety features, I'm also getting 'premium wheels' which I don't want, the gps navigation time capsule because h I'm not paying $100 to update that, and 70 speakers. And it didn't actually come like we ordered anyway (it was pretty close though, had the vacuum cleaner when we wanted a spare tire, managed to find a spot to squeeze in a spare tire). And after all that, it still took 90 minutes to pick up the car when it showed up 3ish months later.
It's much easier to take a car that's already on the lot. Manufacturer's websites are pretty good at finding inventory that's close to what you really want, and you just deal with that.
This, and similar complaints about the buying process, always feels so weird to me as a European. Parting with such a huge amount as the cost of a new car, AFAIK pretty much nobody in Europe ever picks a pre-made one from the lot; it's always ordered to spec, with the exact colours and equipment and options you want. What's the huge rush for you Yanks that you don't do it that way? "But that takes weeks!" -- yeah, so what? If you're getting a new car, don't you usually know that a few weeks beforehand?
I guess I could’ve complained to one of the manufacturers, but what do they care? I’m not buying their cars.
Instead of blinking the brake lights, some U.S. cars automatically turn on the hazard lights under heavy braking. It's standard on mine.
I've never seen or heard of this.
But seeing cars that flash their brake light under heavy/emergency braking is common (typically high-end European brands)
I've done it myself when going from regular speed to unexpected traffic, in the hope that the person behind me is paying attention...
I'm not fundamentally opposed - systems that do it automatically sound like a fantastic compromise. I just think if it's dangerous enough that I feel other drivers need more warning than normal, it's probably dangerous enough that I should have full control.
Then, switch on the hazards so the driver behind you gets a heads up. Obviously you don’t risk crashing fumbling for the hazards.
Particularly useful on rural roads with many turns where the slowdown really might be surprising, or on off ramps where the car behind you might not have arrived yet.
It's basically a heads up for all the vehicles far behind you that haven't yet noticed a sudden change in the flow of the traffic. Gives them more time to reduce speed without haste.
Trying to encode extra info into the brake lights is a fools errand.
> I've never seen or heard of this.
If you're being annoyingly tailgated, rapidly tap your brakes a couple times to signal the tailgater that you have brakes -- if you need to use them for real, he'll crash into you, so he should back off.
Used to be standard communication in Northern Europe, i.e Germany up through the Nordics, but may have fallen somewhat out of the public consciousness recently (Geroffmylawn, damn millennials, etc).
The dealer explained that this is a "critical safety feature" that they install on all the vehicles they sell. He then explained that it makes the brake light flash whenever you press the brake pedal. I read about it for 10 minutes, and found there's a legitimate system in use in Europe that detects emergency braking and flashes the brake light. Since that system detects emergency braking and not just pressing the brake pedal, it doesn't go off all the time and actually means something to other drivers. The Pulse system is just a $30 part that's spliced into the wires right behind the brake light, that the dealer gets to charge $400 for it. And it annoys everyone driving behind you.
I live in a small town on an island with 14 miles of road. There were about five vehicles here five or ten years ago with this system, and they stood out because we all start to recognize each other's cars in an isolated town of 10,000. All of those cars are gone or have had the system removed. I told the dealer I'd look like an a***e to bring that system back to our town. He called back later to say I was lucky and they hadn't installed the system on this particular vehicle yet, and he got special permission to sell me one without Pulse. I told him I found a dealer that wasn't trying to upsell useless parts and hung up.
I've heard of people buying new without running into this kind of tactic. But this is the first time I've ever bought a new vehicle, and I ran into almost every issue I've read about when dealing with new car dealers.
Good god, slimy sales tactics asides that sounds like complete cargo-culting of the feature making it not just useless for its original purpose but actively misleading.
And I would expect the original feature grew at least in part from the common habit (I don't think it's ever required) of enabling the hazards when reaching an unforeseen obstruction: on many cars these days the hazards will automatically switch on during emergency braking (usually detected via an accelerometer, it tends to come on at the same time as brake assist though I don't think the two are coupled), it's possible that on some the brakes will also flash though I can't remember ever seeing that.
Of course many US cars have red turn signals / hazards, and US standards even allow brakes and turn signals to use the same lights, which is… not sane.
One particularly awful safety feature actually ramps up brake force assist when it "detects" emergency braking behavior; typically abrupt lift off of the throttle and subsequent application of the brake.
They never considered that maybe I WANT to abruptly lift off the throttle and then GENTLY apply the brakes, without having my head thrown towards the steering wheel.
FMVSS 108 still requires steady illumination of the stop lamps (including the center high mounted one). I found one article[1] staying that the NHTSA granted a temporary exception to that requirement for Mercedes in 2006. Was that exemption expanded and is it still in effect?
"Pulse is the only pulsing third brake light that meets regulatory requirements for use in all 50 states. Step on the brake pedal and Pulse goes to work pulsing, rather than flashing, the third brake light. What’s the difference? NHTSA regulations restrict flashing lights to emergency vehicles. Our award winning rear-end collision deterrent technology causes the third brake light to remain steady burning, even while the light pulses."
At a 500% markup, it feels less about your safety and more about the dealerships/pulseprotects income safety.
1. (warning xls) https://www.pulseprotects.com/wp-content/uploads/Pulse-Prote...
The profit calculation is based on preinstalling the system on every vehicle that goes on the lot, and then uninstalling it on request. This means opting out costs the dealership real money, from installing and then uninstalling it.
And at least in my Auris it also flashed the hazard light indicator inside the car
Under hard braking on European/Japanese cars the hazard lights will automatically come on. Because they're overloaded in the US it's hard to tell if it's that, or the brake lights flashing unless you're paying close attention to the middle brake light.
Edit: Just seen the comment about the Pulse system - didn't know about that!
Better hope it's not burnt out, like I see all too often in North America
That's new to me as EU driver. What I tend to do is hit brakes three or more times in a rhythmic fashion to signal there's traffic jam ahead; specifically on Autobahn where speeds go high with distances often way too low, instead of turning on alarm blinkers.
___
[§]: Well, pedal.
Yeah, but I don't want to drive extra slow, do I? For one thing, I want to proceed as fast as possible, to get where I'm going. For another, if I slow down, the gap in front of me will widen enough that some fucker -- quite possibly the one now tailgating me -- will squeeze into it, and then I am the one tailgating someone.
> or breaking once I guess.
Quite the Freudian typo... Yes, braking for real while being tailgated is rather likely to lead to things breaking. And since one of those things is me (and another my car), I'd prefer not to.
>I wouldn't expect them to: they cannot see their own turn signal lights while driving.
>If they happen to be behind another Mini, they already know about it
The second sentence indicates that they would not inform Mini of any concerns because they are not aware there should be any concerns.
The third sentence indicates that they would know if there were any possible concerns because they own a Mini.
It indicates that they're used to that because they own a Mini, and by the first time that it actually matters they're accustomed enough to not recognise the concern.
The human brain is really good about not having to ever consciously think about something if it's had enough exposure in advance.
So ... zero survival rate?
Barring that, maybe some sort of diffuser sheet inside?
You are supposed to inspect your car at least from time to time. This includes walking over to see your turn signals work correctly.
Although I could argue it actually takes zero time because I usually do this while waiting for somebody else to get into the car.
As a side note, if you are too busy to brush your teeth you should consider talking to a health professional about consequences of not brushing teeth. Or maybe your wife/girlfriend.
And I don't drive anything fancy..
The only car that needed the engine oil checked regularly was our second car, a 12 year old Opel Corsa. All other cars kept their fluid and just needed the oil changed at the regular intervals.
I doubt they have seen the back of their own car while they are driving said car.
But with the advent of LED's, I suspect that fewer and fewer people are checking their lights since they rarely fail without physical damage.