Attention getter
"Hey officer, I have a huge flashing glowing bonnet distracting everyone on the road! Please pull me over!"
In William Gibson's 1994 novel Virtual Light, one of the characters' cars features “an animated hologram of a waterfall on the hood.” Fast forward 20 years and Toyota might just be about to deliver: at the 2014 Tokyo Toy Show the company showed off a vehicle with a hood covered in LEDs. The hood was hooked up to cameras, …
In the UK, thou shalt not show blue lights at all unless thou art an emergency service vehicle, and thou shalt not show anything other than white or amber visible from the front (there may still be an exception for green lights for non-emergency doctors).
It's going to restrict the scope for images.
On the other hand, focussed bulk LEDs look an interesting technique for automating dipped lights; you could probably arrange things so you *can't* send light in the direction of oncoming lights. (Though if two similarly equipped cars approach, they may *both* make themselves invisible to each other... further thought required!)
I'm sure there would be plenty of people wanting this even if it all it did was black and white static images ala e-ink. They could change the images every time they start their car, or maybe even at stoplights (if the law against moving images is only for moving vehicles)
After all, who would have thought there would be a market for purplish lights underneath a car, but that was a fad for a short time, like car bras were before and spinner rims since. Some people like their car to make a statement, even if that statement says "I'm a braindead trend follower" to some of us!
> Blue lights are actually fine and legal in the UK
From the MOT Tester's Manual
"Two front position lamps must be fitted, one on each side and show a steady white light to the front (or yellow if incorporated in a yellow headlamp)"
They must "show light of the correct colour. Note: Some front position lamps have a blue tinge to the light. This is acceptable provided the light is predominantly white."
A reason for rejection is if the light "shows a light other than red to the rear and white to the front".
A reason for rejection is if the light "shows a light other than red to the rear and white to the front".
That was always my belief - but I'm not sure it's accurate.
The Road Behicles Lighting Regulations 1989 Section 11(1) is concerned only with lamps capable of showing red to the front; it is the colour to the read (defined in Section 11(2)) that is more prescriptive.
There are other sections about blue warning lamps - but these are specifically defined in Section 3 as being "A lamp, fitted to the front or rear of a vehicle, capable of emitting a blue flashing light and not any other kind of light".
Vic.
In Snow Crash The "Pizza Deliverator" for Uncle Enzo's "CosaNostra Pizza Delivery" outfit had a car which projected boiling flames to scare the eejits off the street:
The Deliverator is a Type A driver with rabies. He is zeroing in on his home base, CosaNostra Pizza #3569, cranking up the left lane of CSV-5 at a hundred and twenty kilometers. His car is an invisible black lozenge, just a dark place that reflects the tunnel of franchise signs - the loglo. A row of orange lights burbles and churns across the front, where the grille would be if this were an air-breathing car. The orange light looks like a gasoline fire. It comes in through people's rear windows, bounces off their rearview mirrors, projects a fiery mask across their eyes, reaches into their subconscious, and unearths terrible fears of being pinned, fully conscious, under a detonating gas tank, makes them want to pull over and let the Deliverator overtake them in his black chariot of pepperoni fire.
I saw a Mini with LED screens all over it in London last year. Here it is:
"http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/projection-mapping/mini-launches-worlds-first-hi-res-interactive-led-car-miniartbeat/"
Rather like the recent "Peak Beard" article, these cars are eyecatching when unique but when every chump in a traffic jam is lit up like a council house at Christmas the car that stands out will be the the one that isn't trying to stand out.
I saw a very eye catching black car the other day. It was not shiny black, it was black black. It was so black that it looked as though Disaster Area might launch it into the sun at any moment. When everyone has fairy lights all over their cars, that look will be even more distinctive.