Your Turn Signals Are Putting You in Danger

Your Turn Signals Are Putting You in Danger

Forget airbags—the best way to survive any accident is to avoid having it in the first place. Thus, your car is a rolling arsenal of expensive safety equipment designed to prevent you from smashing into stuff. We tend to first think of things like electronic stability control and automatic emergency braking, but there are far more basic things keeping you safe, including headlights and horns. Your Turn Signals Are Putting You in Danger.

Even sun visors and windshield wipers, which seem more like convenience items, are actually there for safety. The aggregate contribution of these devices adds up to the incredibly complicated, technologically advanced modern car. Which is safer than ever... unless your car has red turn signals, in which case the maker of your car has put you in harm’s way. Your Turn Signals Are Putting You in Danger.

Our government has known for decades that amber turn signals save lives. A 2008 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study concluded that, in the real world, cars with red turn signals are, on average, 22 percent more likely to be hit from behind than cars with amber indicators during a turn-signal-relevant maneuver such as turning, changing lanes, or parking. Your Turn Signals Are Putting You in Danger.

The following year, NHTSA did a second analysis to eliminate any inherent biases due to buyer characteristics, lens type, or even physical separation between red and amber elements. This time it limited the crash data to cars whose rear blinkers had switched color (from red to orange or vice-versa) in a midcycle face-lift, i.e. without changes to the body or the size and shape of the taillight housing itself.

Conclusion: A change from red to orange accounts for a 5.3 percent reduction in rear-end collisions. By comparison, the third brake light mandated in 1986 reduces rear-end collisions by just 4.3 percent. That means switching the color of a turn signal’s bulb is 25 percent more effective than adding an entire additional brake light, yet NHTSA hasn’t issued any kind of mandate.

The agency is finally contemplating adding amber turn signals to the list of criteria that adds up to a Five Star Safety Rating. This program has already encouraged automakers to equip their products with radar sensors so they can perform automatic emergency braking. That radar sensor is why even a base Toyota Corolla now has adaptive cruise control standard.

So Your Turn Signals Are Putting You in Danger.

Source : https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/a32718015/turn-signal-dangers-july-2020/