? L E D taillights
If you have regular tail, stop, turm taillights, can they be changed over to plug & play lights
Forum Discussion
valhalla360 wrote:opnspaces wrote:valhalla360 wrote:
For brake lights in particular, there is one huge advantage going to LED.
Incandescent bulbs light up approximately 0.5 sec after power is applied.
LED light up approximately 0.05 sec after power is applied.
That means the driver behind you gets an extra 0.45 sec to react. May not sound like a lot but even if they still hit you, it will be at a slower speed and therefore should be less serious.
True it's a bit off topic, but you can break it down even further.
At 60mph your car is traveling 88 feet per second. 5260/60=88
At 88 feet per second you are traveling 8.8 feet every tenth of a second. 88/10=8.8ft
Now take the numbers from valhalla360. Even rounding the .45 down to .40 you will travel 35.2 feet in 4 tents of a second. 8.8*.4=35.2 That's more than the length of a standard traffic intersection. So the LED coming on .40 seconds faster than the incandescent will give you an additional 35.2 feet of stopping distance.
It's a little more complicated as both vehicles are moving (your explanation presumes the braking vehicle light comes on after it's at a full stop).
But if in the original situation, you brake a little too late and would hit at 10mph, moderate braking (10mph/s) for (let's round it to 0.5sec for easy math), would result in a 5mph hit. Run the formula for momentum and that's a lot less impact. In a panic brake (20mph/s), you will come screeching to a halt and maybe barely tap the bumper of the lead vehicle.
No it won't help if the following driver never brakes but how many times in a traffic jam, do you slam on the brakes and barely miss hitting the guy in front of you (or you fail)...an extra few tenths of a second will eliminate a lot of those failures.
I agree. People try to imagine things in their real world experiences. And to them milliseconds are just too fast to make a difference. But the numbers don't lie. Even if at 20 mph the .45 second buys you one foot of extra stopping distance (made up number pulled out of the air) that could make the difference between getting out to exchange license and insurance, or continuing on your merry way.
