In the school district where my kid goes, there seems to be a perpetual shortage of bus drivers. When I was growing up, this issue was mitigated through the use of burnout high school students with one or two years of driving experience being entrusted to drive buses in exchange for getting out of school for two periods or so. I’ve written about this before, coming from the era before parents actually loved their children. This isn’t done anymore, which is partially why there’s a driver shortage, which is why I had to drive my kid to school this morning, which is why I happened to be behind this Ram truck, and which is why I happened to notice this issue with its taillights.
I think the issue I have with these taillights is an interesting one, because it represents a sort of one step forward, two steps back situation. The step forward is that these trucks – which I think are 2023 to 2024 Ram pickups – have incorporated amber rear indicators, which have been shown in studies to be safer to varying degrees.
Personally, I think amber rear indicators make more sense, because they are visually distinct from the red brake lamps, and eliminate a potential source of confusion. However, to really be effective, I think there is another important criteria, and it’s in this one that the Ram falls surprisingly short.
Let’s look at what these taillights we’re discussing today are actually like:
So, they’re fairly typical modern pickup truck taillights in size and shape; large, vertically-oriented, and these appear to contain integrated into their middle sections a radar module for blind spot detection. There appears to be plenty of lens real estate for all the crucial functions: brake, taillight, indicator. The reverse lamp is incorporated into the center radar module section.
Now, here’s where things get weird: I was behind one of these trucks, as it was simultaneously braking and indicating a left turn – an extremely common situation. You would think by looking at that taillight that one of the red areas may be a brake lamp, and one of the clear areas may blink for the turn indicator.
What actually happens is this:
Those clear areas seem to do double-duty as both brake lamp and indicator. And yes, the indicator is amber, but for some strange reason the indicators and brake lamps share areas on the taillight, so you can only do one or the other: show a brake lamp or indicate a turn.
Why?
This makes no sense to me: why would you want to disable a crucial warning lamp like a brake light when indicating a turn, especially if you both have the area and have taken the effort to make an amber indicator? This isn’t the 1980s, when truck-makers were cranking out cheap taillights with just two bulbs in them!
There’s plenty of room for separate brake and indicator areas, and there is no logical reason why a taillight-producer in this modern age should be accepting the miserable limitations of the past! What if one taillight is damaged? Then you would be completely brakelightless should you have the temerity to indicate a turn!
I would argue that having separate and distinct functional regions in a taillight is as important as color; it’s helpful for people to be able to recognize such areas and therefore be primed to know what to expect when a given area of the lamp is illuminated. And it’s not like that’s a hard thing to accomplish; hell, my incredibly minimal and spartan Citroën 2CV does this:
I just got these working this past weekend, so I’m excited for a reason to include a picture of these taillights in here. And of course there’s no reverse lamp, because that sort of thing is the same kind of decadent luxury that got Marie Antionette separated from her head.
The point here is that while I respect Ram’s decision to use amber rear indicators, the decision to make turn signals and brake lamps mutually exclusive is just baffling to me. It’s a step backward, and is absolutely unnecessary considering modern taillight hardware.
The state of taillampery in America is still in flux; I hope one day there will be some agreed-upon best practices, and I would hope that among these practices is one that decrees that each function of a taillight should get its own, discreet area, and that multiple signals can be displayed concurrently.
One can dream.
What’s behind that 2CV taillight lens? It
looks like it’s been censored.
Just give me brake lights. I don’t trust turn signals anyway.
I noticed the same thing a few days ago, odd timing. Honestly thought about it for a few seconds, wondered if Torch noticed it, and here we are.
I hope that Otto knows how lucky he is to have an interesting dad. 🙂
Didn’t you crab about this feature on the last gen Jeep Cherokee, Torch? I honestly don’t have any issues with it. I think it’s kind of a neat feature that allows for a color changing indicator. Kinda surprises me that you don’t care for it. There are more than a few vehicles out there that do the same thing with DRLs and turn signals in the front.
There are a few cars that do this now, and the Ram has been doing it since the current generation debuted in 2018. The Telsa Model X is another offender, and its taillight setup is bizarre. There’s a large red section that is only the taillight, and the brake lights are in a small strip under it where you’d expect the turn signal to be, and they are also there! They just light up red when the brakes are on and blink amber when the turn signals/hazards are on. So if the X has its hazards on, you can only rely on the CHMSL to indicate if it’s braking, which is no better than the old combined all-red taillight units.
I was recently behind a Buick Envista. I thought the brake lights would be the red areas that are roughly 3-4ft off the ground. Nope. The brake lights are what I assumed were bumper reflectors, way down low.
What a dumb design.
My wifes Bolt EUV is the same way.
In middle school, our bus was driven by this old Polish janitor who was shit-faced every day. The year after I graduated, he got a DUI while driving the bus.
Well they do still have the CHMSL for the redundant brake light function. but I suspect it make the signal more visible. since the rears are LED and the Brake light being illuminated can washout the turn light flashing for some, it kind of makes sense to have the turn signal going only on whichever side is flashing as well.
Yeah I’ve always thought this was a weird compromise. It’s only slightly better that combined red brake/turn signals.
I also hate that only a small portion of the tail light real estate is actually illuminated. Toyota seems to be the worst offender of that.
the whole sharing the DRL with the turn signal function on the 2022 and up chargers weirds me out when I see it though.
“the era before parents actually loved their children” got a sensible chuckle out of me.
It’s not that they didn’t love us, it’s just there were other things going on. Key parties, disco, fondue, and shopping for far-out threads took up a lot of time. And it took a lot of time to get anywhere thanks to slow, unreliable malaise-era cars.
Plus, McMillan & Wife was on.
Yeah, having to remember to pick us up from baseball practice Every. Single.Time. was probably more of a burden than any of us kids understood back then.
Of course back then, baseball practice was usually in the neighborhood park, just minutes away by bike.
It likely has to do with DOT regulations in America but I’m not going to research that.
Similar to how white DRLs have to turn off when you use the turn signal
They don’t have to. That’s just the way manufacturers do it when their DRL implementation is already kinda crap.
I guess they didn’t want to add more lit area, but it’s certainly a dumb decision to do it this way. The engineers are never going to fight off the bean counters on this type of thing, so the only way to fix it is shaming the designers.
While were on the topic of shaming the designers – if your DRL is so close to your turn signal that you have to turn off the DRL when the indicators are going, it’s a shitty design. It looks dumb and you should feel bad.
I’m not sure how this is a step backward from what the truck probably would have had otherwise. It’s weird, to be sure, but it’s still a separate, obvious turn signal element vs just reusing the red brake lamp.
Except that the brake light and turn signal cannot both be active at the same time. Yeah, it’s a more obvious turn signal, but at a cost of not seeing the brake light on the same side, which means it has pretty much the same problem using the brake light as the turn signal has.
I’d be curious to see if there are any indications of brake lights when using the hazards.
While we’re at it here, let’s fix this issue at the front as well, with the turn signal taking over, or turning off completely, the DRL on that side of the vehicle.
If people honestly cannot tell the difference between the two being on at the same time, and one of the is flashing, then those people really shouldn’t be out driving.
Counter arguments welcome…
I prefer the ones where the DRL fades but stays on so as to prevent overpowering the turn signal. But I do think that some DRLs are so close to, and so much brighter than, the turn signals that some reduction in blinding white light is necessary
You know, I was having a perfectly fine day until you brought this to my attention. Where’s that rich French lady?
Time to sign on to the international UNECE standards
That’s every school district, actually. It’s a big problem. I work in a district and have many contacts in many districts and they all say their districts are perpetually short.
Most the challenges of driving a semi truck plus dealing with a-hole kids and parents? No thanks
I drove a bus as a part-time gig in grad school. I’d argue they are easier to drive than many other modes of transportation. The benefits mainly stem from visibility. Between the high vantage point of being up in a bus, and the seven mirrors, it’s pretty easy to put the bus exactly where you want it to be. For example, the front cross over mirrors show the ground directly in front of the bus for stop lines at intersections, and the side convex mirrors show the rear wheels so you can avoid curbs. Once you get used to the size, the only real difficultly is reversing, which most school districts go to extreme lengths to prevent. I still miss my bus sometimes.
Yes, the kids can be a real issue. But if you have the same route every day, you’ll learn the kids and be able to address the issues as they come up.
I’d be fired before then end of day one because of the kids.
Same here. And the kids would know some interesting words at the end of the day.
“Mommy, what’s a mutherf***ing crotch goblin a**wipe?”
I’m pretty sure I could make them cry without even using any swears.
Bet if they paid more the issue would be solved.
Yep, my district pays the best around and all the other districts complain that they are stealing all drivers. I’m like, yep that’s how it works. And the people in the other communities are like “it’s not fair” and then they vote down school levies over and over again. I just don’t get it.
I read that differently. Growing up, seemed like all bus drivers were tiny older women. I think the put those giant kid pusher things on busses just the tiny old ladies driving them had no chance to see kids running around within 15 feet of the front of the bus.
But that wasn’t the real danger of those tiny old ladies. The real danger was the Fall.
Early in the school year, there would always be someone from a different district that had no respect for the kindly old grandmothers that drove the buses. For the first month of school, they would try to come up with new and exciting ways to drive everyone (including the driver) insane with bullying behavior.
Seasons change. As soon as weather got cooler, the kids started losing sweaters on the bus, and leaves started falling, the district would add a broom to the bus to clean the aisle on blustery fall days.
Sure as fall came after summer, some new kid that didn’t respect the no-longer-sweet little old lady driving the bus would find it hard to sit down for an entire school day because the old lady having access to a broom.
It’s probably not the worst job I can think of, but it’s close. You work maybe 6 hours a day, but it’s a split shift with 5-6 hours off in the middle. Since that’s considered a part-time job, you’re probably not getting any pension or benefits. If it pays more than $19/hr, I’d be surprised.
On top of that, you get to deal with ill-behaved and insolent children.
Gee, where do I sign up?
I just was behind one of these last week, waiting to turn right. It was like the right brake light was out since it was flashing amber.
I could see a cop pulling them over, using the ole ‘you had a taillight out’ excuse.
This seems illegal. Like something is wrong with that truck. There has to be a DOT rule that X square inches of illuminated area is reserved for the turn signal and X square inches is for brake lights. Right? I mean there’s just got to be some kind of regulation about that.
Also, while Torch is, as usual, nit picking on American vehicles, why no mention of Kia (or maybe it was Hyundai) and how so many of their new vehicles have the brakelights up high, but the turn signal is waaaaay down low. You expect the rear lighting to be together, and I’ve seen a few newish Kias where they are very much not in the same location which is more dangerous than whatever is going on with this Ram.
For it to be illegal, some one would have to be regulating it and enforcing those regulations. We live in a society that has long since given all the keys to regulation over to the companies meant to be regulated.
Self-regulation… what can possibly go wrong?!?
He’s covered that topic before.
Why would that be a regulation when you can have the brake lights and turn signals be the same element in the US?
Its the wild, wild west all over again. Who needs safety. I’m waiting for the CHMSL to go away. Heck, maybe all rear lights go away. They needlessly add a few dollars to the cost of a car.
And why is the middle third of the taillamp blacked out?
Did someone pay extra for that on their BIGHORN RAM (GRRRR) 4X4?
Blind spot sensors. They are built into the tail lights of most cars because its easy to add cheaper there.