In the U.S. over 33,000 people die annually in automobile accidents and 40% are rear end collisions. That’s 2.5 million rear end collisions!

The SPEEDLIGHT is a patented taillight system for the automotive industry that informs drivers whether the vehicles in front of them are accelerating, decelerating, in a panic stop, riding the brake, riding the turn indicator or involved in an accident. It also exhibits the speed of the vehicles to within 5mph and differentiates between parked, stopped and standing.

There is nothing else like the SPEEDLIGHT. It’s simple, unique, revolutionary design fills a void in automotive safety and taillight design that has been over looked for 100 years!

It will not only reduce rear end collisions and save lives but it also creates a business opportunity for the taillight industry relative to design and production of the SPEEDLIGHT units and components for all the automotive manufacturers.

It is a horizontal light strip of 18 LED’s on either side of a larger “Stopped”/”Panic” light. Each light in the strip represents 5mph. The range is 0 to 90mph. It activates to low intensity upon ignition and to high intensity with braking. The number of lights to illuminate is relative to the speed of the vehicle. With the vehicle stopped the entire series of lights is illuminated. At 90 mph or more only the 90mph lights on each end (far left and far right) are illuminated. As the vehicle speed decreases during braking or coasting lights sequentially illuminate from both ends towards the middle making each individual light longer and the distance between them less. The speed with which the two lights “grow together” informs the following traffic of the rate of deceleration of the lead vehicle. When the vehicle comes to a complete stop the entire light strip and Panic light illuminate connecting the two lights into one solid line informing the following traffic that the vehicle is stopped. The Panic light and 90 mph lights on each end are always on. The Panic light is only on high intensity during panic deceleration exceeding 15mph/second and when the vehicle is completely stopped.

Additionally there are oval, yellow Marker lights at the 30, 60 and 90 mph positions. that operate the same as other lights. They make reading and comparing all the lead vehicles speed instantaneous. Their oval shape allows for color blindness.

A small SPEEDLIGHT is high mounted on the instrument cluster of the vehicles to allow drivers to compare their SPEEDLIGHT to others and make appropriate corrections for predictable results.

The SPEEDLIGHT is designed to work with and enhance autonomous braking systems by naturally, gradually and consistently educating drivers to recognize the circumstances that activate automatic brakes and training them to be safer drivers. The Speedlight could be introduced as a dynamic third brake light with just the two light strips growing together initially with the panic light added after period of acclimation.

Edward J. Sekol, B.S.,D.C.
Speedlight.org