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Incandescent Bulb and LED Brake Lights: Novel Analysis of Reaction Times

Palaniappan, Ramaswamy, Mouli, Surej, Fringi, Evangelia, Bowman, Howard, McLoughlin, Ian (2021) Incandescent Bulb and LED Brake Lights: Novel Analysis of Reaction Times. IEEE Access, 9 . pp. 29143-29152. ISSN 2169-3536. (doi:10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3058579) (KAR id:85926)

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3058579

Abstract

Rear-end collision accounts for around 8% of all vehicle crashes in the UK, with the failure to notice or react to a brake light signal being a major contributory cause. Meanwhile traditional incandescent brake light bulbs on vehicles are increasingly being replaced by a profusion of designs featuring LEDs. In this paper, we investigate the efficacy of brake light design using a novel approach to recording subject reaction times in a simulation setting using physical brake light assemblies. The reaction times of 22 subjects were measured for ten pairs of LED and incandescent bulb brake lights. Three events were investigated for each subject, namely the latency of brake light activation to accelerator release (BrakeAcc), the latency of accelerator release to brake pedal depression (AccPdl), and the cumulative time from light activation to brake pedal depression (BrakePdl). To our knowledge, this is the first study in which reaction times have been split into BrakeAcc and AccPdl. Results indicate that the two brake lights containing incandescent bulbs led to significantly slower reaction times compared to eight tested LED lights. BrakeAcc results also show that experienced subjects were quicker to respond to the activation of brake lights by releasing the accelerator pedal. Interestingly, analysis also revealed that the type of brake light influenced the AccPdl time, although experienced subjects did not always act quicker than inexperienced subjects. Overall, the study found that different designs of brake light can significantly influence driver response times.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3058579
Projects: Using Cognitive Responses to Assess and Improve Vehicle Brake Light Designs
Uncontrolled keywords: Brake light reaction time, brake light stimulation, bulb vs. LED response time, LED brake light, road safety
Subjects: T Technology > TE Highway engineering. Roads and pavements
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences > School of Computing
Depositing User: Palaniappan Ramaswamy
Date Deposited: 08 Feb 2021 23:49 UTC
Last Modified: 05 Nov 2024 12:51 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/85926 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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