I’ve noticed a new group showing up at my fourth-favorite taillight bar, the Crimson Candle, and the members of this group seem to be part of a small and relatively new clique in the taillight community: puddle-light fetishists, known in the community as Puddle Peddlers, or just “puddlers.” While not strictly taillight-related, puddlers are focused on cars that use “puddle lights,” and, as that is part of the vehicular lighting spectrum, were welcomed at the taillight bar. I can’t say I enjoyed their company, but what they were about got me thinking.
I guess first I should explain just what the hell “puddle lights” are, in case you’re somehow unaware. A puddle light is mostly just done for fun, for brand identity, and just to add a bit of drama to the act of entering and exiting your car, especially at night. Essentially, puddle lights are little projector-type lights, usually mounted on the underside of the side-view mirror.
The light pattern these lights cast can vary anywhere from a simple literal puddle of light to shaped logos and even, in some cases, actual animations. Here’s a couple of examples, on a Rivian and a Mach-e:
See? Those are puddle lights! Little projections, on the ground. Now, the puddlers at the Crimson Candle were very enthusiastic about their puddle lights, and wouldn’t leave me alone until they showed me all of their puddle lights on their Minis and Lincolns and whatever, and while I appreciated their enthusiasm, I still felt that these lights were a bit frivolous.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I adore frivolity; I’ve sort of made a career on that, if I’m honest. But taillights are working lights, and there seems to be a lot of untapped useful potential in puddle lights, potential that, so far, most of the auto industry has been sleeping on.
Maybe not all, of course; Audi, for example, has some extremely advanced “digital matrix lights” that do a lot of this sort of projection for safety and communication work, as you can see in this video:
As these are headlight-based light systems, these are illegal in America, which is why US-market Audis do not have these advanced safety features or fun animations. I have no idea why the US is so backwards when it comes to lighting regulations, but we kind of always have been, and I’m not going to fight this fight now.
No, instead I have some ideas that can leverage the possibilities of puddle lamps in non-headlamp contexts, which could mean these would be street-legal even here in America. I think there are two primary applications of puddle lamps that could genuinely provide some real safety benefits.
First, we can once again look at the current common use of puddle lamp tech:
Okay, let’s look at what else could be done with essentially this same basic tech: projector lamps mounted in side mirror housings. With only some minimal adjustments to projection angle and maybe intensity, it should be possible to use very close to existing hardware to have puddle-enhanced turn indicators:
For nighttime highway driving, this could provide some real, tangible safety advantages by not just indicating the direction of a turn – or, in this case, a lane change, but also by marking the rough area the car is intending to occupy after the turn/lane change.
On a busy, fast-moving highway, a driver may not notice the car in the lane next to them signaling, but I bet they sure as hell will see that patch of orange light on the road in front of them, and will be ready to make room for the car that will soon be filling that space.
Perhaps the illuminated area should be projected a bit ahead of the car? That may work even better. Still, same basic principle. This has the most benefits for lane change contexts, but certainly can’t hurt visibility for pretty much any turn, generally.
Okay, this next one would require new puddle lamp projectors to be installed at the front and rear of the car, but I think that’ll be worth it. Here’s what I’m thinking: as you drive, projector lamps on the front of the car project onto the road guidelines to show, roughly, your safe braking distance.
So, when you’re going slower, there’s a shorter warning area projected, and as speed increases, more and more distance is shown – at least, as far as the lights can reasonably project, which, if the Audi system is any indicator, could be quite far.
These forward-facing projections would be amber and not part of the headlamp system, so should be legal, likely falling under the same categorization as foglamps or driving lights. Even if the full braking distance couldn’t be entirely illuminated, what is shown should be enough to at least remind people how long it takes to stop at speed, which is always helpful.
At the rear, why not include a projected brake light onto the pavement behind the car? It can’t hurt, right? A nice red STOP image on the ground behind your car can only help to get people’s attention and keep them from smacking into you when you’re coming to a stop.
That’s the beauty of the taillight community: all the various subgroups and sub-fetishes can combine and put their fascinations into the roiling stew of ideas that is always cooking in a healthy taillight culture community, and sometimes those ideas can actually be something of value to everyone, not just weirdos like those puddlers.
I’ve been wanting this for years, glad I’m on the right side of lighting opinions.
Puddle Light Indicators…
Why the United States didn’t require the side turn signal repeaters is beyond me despite its effectiveness in collision avoidance. Many countries, including Japan, require them.
I had a 1986 Chevrolet Celebrity with front side running lamps and retroreflective markers having a very tiny square for the bulb to blink in sympathy with the front turn signal indicators, but it was so ineffective during the day. I was frustrated with frequent close calls when changing the lanes. So, I installed the Lancia side turn signal repeaters on the fenders behind the front wheel arches. Problem solved. No more close calls.
These things are all cute until you find out what it cost to replace certain parts that were relatively cheap to replace years ago here’s an example. The famous old sun visor that everybody has in their car while on certain cars they have a homellink transmitter built into them the simple little sun visor that usually cost maybe 70 to $80 now cost between $700 to $800. Your side mirrors now have cameras instead of a side mirror costing $100 to $200 there now $800 to $1,000 and then some of them have to be calibrated after that mirror is installed otherwise it won’t function that means the labor is not going up from 120 to several hundred dollars. Yep all these little bells and whistles are going to cost you an arm and a leg in the future when these things are out of warranty or if they break due to something like that a shopping cart hitting them.
If you think current LED brake/turn lights are incredibly bright at night, you’ll need 10x the output to bounce noticable light off a road to a driver.
Parking/Entry puddle lights work well due to the relative contrast between the surroundings and the lighting, and if it’s too bright out you don’t even notice them. With headlights, indicators, DRLs, and brake lights in the mix, you’ll never see these unless both you and the other vehicle are running DRL only.
I would happily put Gordon Keeble badge puddle lights on about anything.
The story is just too good to let go of. Or, maybe I’m just juvenile.
Braking distance is actually a neat idea, but think further – illuminated and dynamic RACING LINE! Apex that corner – only now for 29,99/month!
Product opportunity: an app running on your car that projects advertising for various products while you are parked. Any ad network could add this ad placement type.
It’s not hard to imagine a Cyberpunk level of light pollution from this concept.
Who cares, when businesses can make money!
My wife thinks the puddle lights on my Mach E are cheesy. But I say cheese is tasty!
Bicycle taillights can offer red projected lines in the road to illustrate a ‘safe’ distance to cars as they pass them.
I think it’s useful.
Great, torch just single handedly created a new set of DOT regulations.
Just give me a light that shines back at cars whose lights are above a certain intensity in my rear view mirror.
If we can do patterns make it a middle finger.
I had a halogen fog light I mounted, pointing slightly upwards, on the back bumper of my Peugeot 504 that I could toggle on and off when someone was on my ass with irritating high beams or poorly aimed headlights. It was pretty effective. Back then.
Now, I am afraid of people packing heat, who are just itching to pull a trigger.
I agree with some other posters. I don’t need more visual distraction when I’m trying to drive. The LED billboards are bad enough! I KNOW I’m hard-wired to respond to flashes of light and movement! Don’t make me crash my car because I have natural instincts!!!
Turn signals, meh, could work, but I don’t see a huge benefit over corner and mirror markers as it is.
Tail and headlight are going to end up affected by braking pitch, so you may end up projecting the brake puddle into someone’s interior and the braking zone would shrink significantly when it shouldn’t, or you need oversized or motorized projections to adjust to the brake pitch. Seems like a less intrusive way for braking distance that doesn’t require potential motors to correct would be a HUD, no one else needs to know your braking zone but you after all.
And thats before we talk about how the car can figure out what its braking zone is with unknown tires and traction conditions, likely a lawsuit waiting to happen “mY cAr ToLd Me I hAd EnOuGh RoOm To StOp YoUr HoNoR!?!?!”
Well well well! First you tell us about forklight warning light CAGR numbers and now about innocent ideas of how to integrate them in cars.
How long have you been in the pocket of Big Warning Light huh? And what did they promise for you to use your taillight festish street cred to do their bidding? Commodore 64 spare parts? Vintage semaphor porn? Amber turn signal lobbying?!
I SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING JASON!