nick47 wrote:
No one ever proved it was more effective, but they did come up with some clever statistics.
The "research" consisted of adding parcel-shelf brake lights to fifteen marked Metro DC police cars. Over the course of the trial, which was less than a year, they still got rear-ended a couple of times. The "numbers", apparently pulled out of thin air since no control group was ever mentioned, said that it reduced incidents of rear-end collisions by 75%.
Now, figure out what kind of driver it will take to rear-end a marked police car in the first place...
As far as I know no real testing was ever done. It was just such an obviously great idea they signed it into law.
I wrote a number of letters back when word hit the magazines, and eventually got a "we don't care what you think" form letter.
Back when I used to meet up with guys from sportbikes.net for group rides, there would always be one or two bozos who showed up with those idiot taillight flashers. They always got sour when they had to ride at the back of the pack, behind the slowest bikes. And we turned away a few with the "headlight pulsers" because nobody wanted to have them flashing in their mirrors all day.