This is an old idea of mine, but I’m writing about it now before self-driving cars take over and it won’t make any sense.
The idea is simple: add green lights to the array of tail lights in cars. When the car accelerates, the green lights will light up the same way red lights work when it decelerates.
“You must be crazy!” I hear you say. “This will just make everyone drive faster! Don’t we have enough accidents already?! ” But consider this: while the green lights signal to the driver behind you that you are accelerating, the lack of them signals that you are decelerating. And the advantages of having this information, I think, may outweigh the disadvantages of having the green lights on.
This is something we can experiment with, the same way they experimented in different countries with countdown timers for traffic lights. And this one is just about the Chinese traffic light experiment. In other countries the effect was different, so there really isn’t one answer whether this kind of an idea is good or bad – it depends on the driving culture per-country.
UPDATE: According to Wikipedia “Some jurisdictions, such as the US states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho, permit vehicles to be equipped with auxiliary rear signal systems displaying green light when the accelerator is depressed, yellow light when the vehicle is coasting, and red light when the brake is depressed. Such systems have in the past been sold as aftermarket accessories, but are today seldom seen in traffic.”