Capturing attention to brake lamps.

Rear-end collisions and distraction are major concerns and basic research in cognitive psychology concerning attention in visual search is applicable to these problems. It is proposed that using yellow tail lamps will result in faster reaction times and fewer errors than current tail lamp coloring (red) in detecting brake lamps (red) in a "worst case" scenario where brake lamp onset, lamp intensity and temporal and contextual cues are not available. Participants engaged in a visual search for brake lamps in two conditions, one using red tail lamps with red brake lamps and one with the proposed combination of yellow tail lamps with red brake lamps in which they indicated by keyboard response the presence or absence of braking cars. The hypothesis that separating brake and tail lamps by color alone would produce faster RTs, reduce errors, and provide greater conspicuity was supported. Drivers and non-drivers detect absence and presence of red brake lamps faster and with greater accuracy with the proposed yellow tail lamps than red tail lamps without the aid of any of the aforementioned cues. Vehicle conspicuity will be improved and reductions in rear-end collisions and other accidents will be reduced by implementing the proposed yellow tail lamp coloring.