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.
Probably because in America, people will be using these to project “FJB” or dicks onto things, and we certainly cannot have THAT.
I’d set mine to show “Fuck Donnie Dorko”. Apologies to Jake Gyllenhaal.
Not just 30 seconds ago a coworker was talking about Donnie Darko. Strange day…
I would assume the taillight bar has a small interactive workbench where the different patrons could mock up their ideas realtime so they can be discussed? It would be helpful to brainstorm ideas, then come back the next day to see what you did the night before (while drunk, obviously). Eventually there are going to be some good ideas, like this one.
(think of it like a RC car workbench with various incandecent and LED light sources that can be retrofitted to the blow moulded shells of the RC car bodies)
One Lantern Lager with these guys and Jason becomes a puddle pusher.
Actually, while entertaining, it’s a fantastic idea too. Perhaps an aftermarket side business for the Autopian? You could be like JC Whitney, but of just aftermarket lighting.
Not sure how common this is, but I have started seeing a lot of forklifts using lights to project onto the ground around them a line defining a ‘safety box’ – basically an outline of the zone around the forklift that is unsafe for pedestrians.
I’ve already seen something similar in China. Not sure how legal they are over there, but there’s after market kits you can install which project a “safety distance” red line behind the car.
While I like the indicator idea, I doubt it would work for its intended audience. Any car rapidly approaching from the blind spot is too far ahead to whatever is projected on the ground. Unless they had a front camera, or a cab forward of the front axle, it would be hard to spot.
Other concern is light blindness. We already have arguments that current LEDs are blinding drivers. Now imagine driving uphill on a wet road, and having all of these new lights shining back at you.
They’re awesome. Wife has them on her new BMW, mine only has basic ass lights when the doors are open like a pleb.
I would like to point out that Puddle Lights come from humble, working-light beginnings. All the way back to my SAAB 9000 had puddle lights in the bottoms of the doors. Proper, simple lights, to illuminate the ground at night when the door was opened as you exited the car to help you avoid…. Puddles.
I thought this might be an April Fool’s, but as I read on…genius.
Wow, just yesterday I came across a breakdown truck on a blind bend, attending a car. Thankfully I was going the other direction, but I had the thought of using some kind of beam to throw a warning light onto the ground at a distance behind the truck.
My thoughts did turn to how would you avoid blinding drivers coming up behind as they drive into the beam but there must be a way…
This is a stupid idea for a problem that doesn’t exist, mate. Sorry to put it so bluntly.
I’m sure VW will pick it up.
VW will have a single button to control all these new lights, with a toggle to switch which lights are controlled by the button
You seem to be lost, friend. Where can we direct you to?
Just a children’s bat signal
The side view mirror is a dumb spot for something called a “puddle light”. They should be mounted into the horizontal bottom of the door so you can see if you’re about to step into an actual puddle when you exit your car.
The ones on my RAV4 light up as we approach with the key fob. I like it because I can see the puddle or ice before I get to the car.
When exiting, I’ve usually paid some attention to where I’m parking so I’m typically not surprised when I get out of the car.
To me it’s more valuable to have the extra lighting as I approach, as the ground conditions may have changed since I parked. As always, to each their own.
I do like the red reflectors on the doors, that make use of an approaching vehicle’s headlights to warn the other driver the car ahead has an open door. I have vague recollection of being in a GM vehicle (Caddy or Olds?) that had that feature, probably back in the mid ’70s. This is a feature I’d love to see make a comeback.
I also like the door reflectors (don’t remember what cars had them). So I stick reflector tape on the trailing edge of my doors to provide that effect. It’s not as effective as a plastic reflector, but it should help. (I put yellow reflector tape on the front of my side mirrors, too, but at this point it’s pretty much rotted away and I need to replace it when it stops snowing.)
This is how the Mazda CX-90 puddle lights work.
Great ideas, but… A busy road filled with these would look like Blade Runner.
…and? Just swerve around all the yellow and red ones. It’ll be like F-Zero! Nobody ever wrecked on F-Zero!
Is that a bad thing?
I’m sorry, but having driven in Europe, those headlights that are constantly doing stuff in are an annoyance to other drivers.
If your coming at me on B-road at night, and your lights appear to be flickering to me, the opposing driver, its a distraction I don’t need.
Auto low/high beams? Fine. You never really need high beams unless you are driving very late or really out in the middle of nowhere.
But lights on the pavement in front of me? No. My headlight will probabl cancel it out anyway…or make it look vaguely pink?
LED’s are already too ****ing bright, blinding, and distracting when they are static. Adding more function will be worse.
Re the front braking distance lighting: unfortunately, I don’t think it’s feasible.
How do you expect this to interact with your headlamp illumination? I think if you can see the yellow blobs despite your low beams projecting onto the same area, then your low beams are too weak.Even neglecting #1, the distance calculations would require not only taking into account vehicle speed, and vehicle capabilities (not even getting into driver capabilities), it requires LiDAR ranging to constantly monitor concavity/convexity of the road. Otherwise, at the top of a hill your braking distance projection is infinity, and near the bottom it is projected too short. (Oh yeah, braking distance reduces on in cline and increases on a decline, too. Cue the level sensors negotiating with the LiDAR.)
In London there were hire bikes with puddle lights, projecting little green bike symbols on the ground in front of them. A number of times I was nearly flattened, looking distractedly at the green bike on the ground before I realised where it had come from and why it was there and spotting the bike itself
One burst of EMP and boom, boom out go the lights. We need something that can survive a nuclear blast not just project air tattoos on the ground. No telling who might wish us ill as long as the Dork Lard rules the land. Althoooooough, a puddle light that projects the Bat signal would be cool as shit …
I think the growing Global Forklift Warning Light industry mobsters might be *beep*beep*ing into the Crimson Candle for a “chat”. There may be more puddles than just the lights if those lift guys get their forks into you.
This is up there with “we can send a person to the moon, but we can’t…”
How about just some decent trunk/hatch area lighting? Or, for shits and giggles, headlights that actually do something close to what we expect them to?
I added two strips of white LEDs under the rear shelf in the trunk of my sedan 10 years ago and I can confirm it’s been a great upgrade for not a lot of money.
Please don’t add more random light into the environment. There are enough flashing colored lights and/or screens out there distracting people and making things unpleasant. It’s just an arms race of lighting in which nobody should engage. More variations in signals that will confuse people and cause accidents.
Maybe it’s my aging eyes, but I can’t handle more LEDs in the nightscape. And I’m not crazy about the safe breaking distance adjustable beam. In theory, it’s neat, but in practice, the road would look like a rave.
I do love all the gifs for this article though! Every taillight article needs animated images.
The article is excellent to read! I just think more LED and more distractions is a very bad path to follow. “Was that my puddle light or a light reflected in a puddle?”
About a month ago, I was driving during a rain storm, later than I usually plan to drive, on a highway that had the left lane merge right, with concrete barriers with reflectors and flashing lights, and a new tow truck with too bright LED flashing warning lights in the right lane ahead. Dark, wet conditions cause confusing reflections. While I momentarily thought the lane change puddle had merit, No, please don’t.
Yup, just what we need, more bright flashing LEDs.
Might be helpful for self-driving cars tho, if we can standardize on the signals (of course, the US will use red for lane changes and turns, while the rest of the world uses amber).
This isn’t the /worst/ Torch-take I’ve seen to lighting.
“lamps on the front of the car project onto the road guidelines to show, roughly, your safe braking distance”
This would be radical; I can’t tell if nobody here knows a safe follow distance, or if they just think they have good reflexes.
If nothing else, this could lead to less people cutting me off–if they know my car doesn’t have time to stop, maybe they won’t test my reaction time.
We have a friend who comes from CT. She was driving when my wife suggested (I95, we are in MA) she was following a little close at 75, she remarked “It’s a whole car length”. Our friend doesn’t project confidence when driving……
She sounds damned confident!
Connecticut sounds like the way LA was described to me ages ago: “bumper to bumper at 85.”
Per 10 mph. ?
I always think of this scene from Lost Highway, which I’m pretty sure was just Lynch writing in a personal rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkQ5Ks0nZEw
Dunno if it’s still true, but used to be in Chicago leaving a whole empty car-length in front of you on the expressway was signaling your permission for other drivers to move into it. Driving was very aggressive, but also very predictable, so it mostly worked. (I believed the unpredictable ones had been beaten to death with jack handles. Maybe things changed when jacks stopped having proper handles.)
So the potential lawsuits for the braking distance one would make it unusable in the US but other countries it would be great. I think the more interesting one would be to project an animate light show similar to the trains in Japan where they do short animations as you go through long tunnels. I’m not able to find it but simple stick figure animations to fun safety items.
The Chinese already have projectors fitted to the front of several models. They are always ahead of the curve now. They can project all sorts of things like free west tawian or ads for energy drinks.
You fool, don’t give them any ideas. You know where this actually goes, ads!! Advertising revenue is the new god.
Don’t worry, you don’t get that money though, it goes to Ford, or Audi, etc (with AWS or Google somehow scraping 40%).
Don’t like it? Subscribe to the puddle-free package for $4.95 a month. Don’t try to cheap out and just cover them, you’ll fail inspection, and it’s a primary ticket offense.
Ads FROM THE MANUFACTURER
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“Add that special touch with turn signals” (BMW only)
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Why just ads? Why can’t I have my social media feeds projected there, to give me something to read while driving late at night when it’s boring out? Honk twice to like and subscribe! And don’t forget to smash that bell!