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Comment by kalleboo | Hacker News Reader

> What had been a common signal for “you’re a little too close”

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)

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I've commonly seen people just throw on their hazard blinkers in case of drastic braking on the highway... especially in bad weather.

I've done it myself when going from regular speed to unexpected traffic, in the hope that the person behind me is paying attention...

This is pretty standard in the UK, most higher end cars even do it automatically.

I wish it was more standard where I live (Canada)..

I'm actually not a fan of it. Granted I've mostly driven older cars, without the wonders of ABS etc - but most situations that require heavy, unplanned breaking for me, are also times I really should have two hands on the wheel.

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.

First, do what you need to get the car under 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.

Usually there is a buffer where you've noticed a hazard in front and are braking in time. But then your next focus is on what is behind you. Did they notice you braking hard, are the about to hit into you, do you need to move over for them, etc. Hazards just add a bit more warning that red brake lights, because they're so common, can't convey.

It's done afterwards, once you've safely reduced the speed of your vehicle, not during the initial emergency braking.

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.

Even non high end do it. An old Clio or 207 from 15 years ago do that...

People are pretty good at doing this in Ohio. I’ve never seen anyone do it in Wisconsin.

This is pretty common in Germany on the Autbahn - sudden change in traffic, i.e. much slower going cars and especially when approaching the end of a jam, you turn on your hazard blinkers to signal this to the following cars. It works pretty well and is very useful (especially because people might be going at 200km/h behind you, approaching the end of a jam). Newer cars have an automatic high-frequency hazard flasher that triggers when heavy/sudden breaking occurs, also to warn the cars behind you.

This is also standard common curtesy on Japanese highways. The biggest part is drivers behind the original signaler will turn on their hazards to communicate backwards in the chain. Thus everyone can anticipate the slow down before the slow down would be visible. It is a big deal in Japan where even the raised highways and especially tunnels under Tokyo are curvy.

If you're suddenly going so much less than the prevailing speed that you're a hazard then turning on your flashers makes sense since that's what they're used for.

Trying to encode extra info into the brake lights is a fools errand.

> > What had been a common signal for “you’re a little too close”

> 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).

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