Putting brake lights on a toggle switch/counter measure

For some reason the officers around here like to sit on the side of the road, in the median or even on on-ramps and wait till you pass to shoot you with radar. And a lot of them either don't turn their gun on or wait until the last second when im already close to them (or past them even), or my RD doesn't detect them to well. Which is why I rely on my eyes a lot of the time and why this "mod" below would be worthwile.

I was wondering what you guys think and if it would be possible (or legal even) to wire in a toggle switch in the brake light line so you can turn them on or off when needed. It would be nice to have them turned off at the swtich when im one of the only nuts speeding down the highway at night and I spot an officer who I know will radar me when I go past him.
Obviously, if I start riding the brakes with the brake lights on like normal, odds are he will see them light up and get suspicious. ~NOTE: I don't know if its even posssible depending on the angle if your looking in your rearview or sideview mirrors to see someone light up their brake lights since headlights (especially when on high) will blind you.~ As long as he didn't shoot me with radar while I was speeding, he really has no reason to pull me over right? Im sure he would atleast follow me though and run a few certain 6 digits of mine. Har har.
I don't know, tell me what you guys think. Of course it could also be a safety issue if I were to accidently leave them off when driving around town or something. Im aware of that though. I've always been weary that when I see a cop who hasnt radared me yet (atleast my RD hasn't detected anything) that If I slow down and he seems me slowing down, he would attempt to give me a ticket anyway. Or atleast a warning.

I have really given some thought to this myself.

Some parts of Canada run intercept/laser from the rear in similar set-ups.

One reason for this is that running a radar detector is illegal. Whether you have a VG2/SPECTRE immune detector is irrelevant because they will watch for who hits the brakes when they light you up.

I understand some already do this for this very reason.

My only concern is the possibility of creating a chain reaction accident.

If one were to suddenly nail the brakes in response to a radar/laser encounter with their brake lights disabled one runs a very high risk of creating an MVA at highway speeds.

Trust it, its not fun. Not discussing the possibility of serious injury/fatality, if an officer observed you slowing down abruptly you could be charged with a host of offenses much more serious than merely speeding/possession/operation of a radar detector.

I suspect you could be looking at at least a misdemeanor or possibily a felony [in the US] or equivalent [elsewhere].

Factoring in the risk of causing serious injury/fatality, my vote would be to chalk this one up to a creative but not a practical solution.

In otherwords, the cure may very well be worse than the "disease."

Good luck with whatever you decide and sorry for the "rain."

Safe motoring...

The Veil Guy 8)

If you hook a timer up to it. Then I would approve of this. I would hate to see someone forget to switch their brake lights back on. :cry:

Here's another disadvantage to connecting a 'kill-switch' to your brakelights.

Say you're running at night, you see an LEO car on the side of the road, you kill the brakelights/taillights and drive past, but your headlights are still on, he sees you go pass without BL/TL and guess what?

As for seeing brakelights in your rearview mirrors, you can see - lights will illuminate reflective signs on the opposite side of the road, even mile markers (just one more way to be observant).

I would not recommend this method, it could be a lose-lose situation.

In another thread I recommended down-shifting instead and still do recommend it.

I have a kill switch for my brake lights. It has 2 advantages for me. One you can black out completley if you need to. In my case I do neighborhood patrol and recently busted 3 guys breaking into cars. It helps. Another advantage is if the switch is off then the transmission will not go into gear. Can't steal a vehilce that will not go into gear.

Jason

I seriously hope people will not do this for safety reasons, but if you must do it then do it correctly. Instead of a kill switch, I would recommend wiring up a manual hold button. This way you would have to press and hold the button to suppress the brake lights. This way unless you just drove around with your finger on the button all the time your brake lights would work properly as they should. As a precaution, I would highly advise thoroughly checking your rear and side mirrors before using the hold button. You don't want granny in her 300hp luxury tank or much worse a tractor trailer using you as "bear bait" plowing into your rear at a high rate of speed. No ticket is worth risking life and limb to avoid! If you are in an area where they target from the rear enough to consider doing this then you probably need a V1 to maximize your chance of picking up the hit from the rear and knowing where the radar is coming from. Downshifting is one option, but if you have an automatic transmission then you can do this very well. Pulling the emergency brake is a stupid idea so do not consider doing this for obvious reasons.

Why would pulling the ebrake be bad?

Different cars are different, but my car, the ebrake pulls the service brake pads on the rear discs against the rotor like the service brake. And the handle is hand-operated... so?

If I pull the emergency brake on my VW it engages the rear pads, great for braking, it however also turns off the headlights. It doesn't turn on the brake lights, but it turns off the headlights. I guess so you won't drive around at night with your e-brake on ?

Although emergency brakes are commonly not very effective, this is a very dangerous practice: especially on a wet road, you could go into a spin before you realize it. Don't do it.

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Originally Posted by jbird

I seriously hope people will not do this for safety reasons, but if you must do it then do it correctly. Instead of a kill switch, I would recommend wiring up a manual hold button. This way you would have to press and hold the button to suppress the brake lights. This way unless you just drove around with your finger on the button all the time your brake lights would work properly as they should. As a precaution, I would highly advise thoroughly checking your rear and side mirrors before using the hold button. You don't want granny in her 300hp luxury tank or much worse a tractor trailer using you as "bear bait" plowing into your rear at a high rate of speed. No ticket is worth risking life and limb to avoid! If you are in an area where they target from the rear enough to consider doing this then you probably need a V1 to maximize your chance of picking up the hit from the rear and knowing where the radar is coming from. Downshifting is one option, but if you have an automatic transmission then you can do this very well. Pulling the emergency brake is a stupid idea so do not consider doing this for obvious reasons.

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A button dam thats a good idea! Like you said pulling your ebrake is a bad idea. I did it in parking lots good way to slide your car. :(

I had a kill switch for my brake lights about 2 years ago. Bad idea. I got rear-ended after forgetting to turn them back on. Not my fault, but still an accident I didnt need have.

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Originally Posted by (in)Sanity

If I pull the emergency brake on my VW it engages the rear pads, great for braking, it however also turns off the headlights. It doesn't turn on the brake lights, but it turns off the headlights. I guess so you won't drive around at night with your e-brake on ?

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It's in case you forget to turn your lights off when you park :)

But it leaves the rest of the lights on... :lol:

So? you're supposed to have the rest of the lights on when you're parked with the engine running. Also, the headlights use significantly more electricity than the others.

I was just going to make a post about this! Good thing I checked first.

The solution (in my opinion) is, as someone else already said, to use a simple momentary switch so you never have to worry about leaving them off. Also, you don't have to worry about your tail lights not working because what you do it wire the momentary switch in line with your brake light switch. You need to get a momentary switch that will open the circuit. This will effectivly sever your brake light switch from the brake lights and then they won't go on. I plan on doing this to my car next weekend when I install my Blinder. I really like the idea of being able to completely black-out my car incase I ever pass a cop and he gets my speed and I have to jump off at the next exit. Without brake lights it would be very hard to see where you went.

I'll post back after I do this mod to let you know how it went. Oh, and a toggle switch is not such bad news if you have a newer car that alerts you if your brake lights are not working. Hell, I have a '92 and it will display "Brake lights failure" and keep flashing it until you shut the car off.

I had some electrical problem with my tail lights/brake lights and had to wire a switch to my tail lights so I wouldn't have to get in the trunk every time I wanted the lights to come on. Since I was doing that I put a switch into my brake light circuit. Both switches are lighted so when my tail lights are on the switch is lit up red, and every time I hit my brakes the blue switch turns on unless it is switched off. The blue switch is pretty bright and I can see it light up in my peripheral vision at night, and most of the times during the day. If I am of the freeway and it is safe to do so I turn my brake lights off just in case. So far I haven't run into any problems with forgetting to turn them on, every time I exit the freeway I check that switch, along with every time I get in my car. With the setup that I have I can have my headlights on without any tail lights. I was parked on a hill in my friends neighborhood and my ebrake sucks, so I would either have to turn the car off and put it in gear to stop it from rolling or just hold the brake, the switch helped so I could hold the brake and not annoy people with the bright lights.

I think this is a good idea folks. Especially for our Ontario users! :)