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Old 02-22-2013, 03:08 PM   #10
davidwp
 
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 11
I am a real amber rear turn signal geek. I went so far as putting 'Euro' lights in my 2001 coupe less than 2 weeks after bringing it home from Museum delivery. Wifey was a bit dismayed when she came into the garage to find:



It all worked:


It sure makes more sense to me than combined turn and brake lights. I'm always irritated to see Saturns and Malibus with amber turns and my Corvette didn't even have separate turn lights. It seemed to me that the ambers were safer and, sure enough, a while back I found this:

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The Effectiveness of Amber Rear Turn Signals for Reducing Rear Impacts
DOT HS 811 115

This purpose of this report is to determine the effect of rear turn signal color on the likelihood of being involved in a rear-end crash. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108 allows rear turn signals to be either red or amber in color. The principal finding of the report is that amber signals show a 5.3% effectiveness in reducing involvement in two-vehicle crashes where a lead vehicle is rear-struck in the act of turning left, turning right, merging into traffic, changing lanes, or entering/leaving a parking space. The advantage of amber rear turn signals is shown to be statistically significant.
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Okay, the C7 - I found this at Corvette Action Center as part of a interview by Jake Drennon (C5 Registry) with Kirk Bennion (Corvette Exterior Designer).

Kirk: "The 2014 Corvette tail lamps are actually global-compliant, so we don’t have to put another tail lamp on the car. For Europe, you’ll have one backup and one fog light – it comes out of the same quadrant, and the park and turn stay the same, but the inner are changed out. So, in Europe, for the people that don’t use the fog lights, the lamp look is the same between domestic and global."

These tail lamps also have amber LEDs. Amber LEDs are the most expensive. So typically, a lot of cars won’t use amber LEDs for that reason, but here again, in keeping with wanting to raise the bar, that was something we told Tadge was a have-to-have."

Fortunately, I found this thread with this new-to-me picture:



Finally, for the two or three people who care about this and have stuck with me this far, here is my conclusion:

Kirk talks about 'quadrants' because, I think, the tail light on each side has four different sections:

- Outboard unit with a 3D u-shaped lens surrounding a flat lens
- Inboard unit also with a 3D u-shaped lens surrounding a flat lens

And here is my take on what Kirk was saying (are you still following?) -

Domestic -
Outboard 3D lens - Diffused red LEDs, two stage:
- Standard Brightness, Park (and running) Lights
- Brightest, Brake Lights
Outboard flat lens - Amber LEDs (YES!!!):
- Turn Signals
Inboard 3D lens - Diffused red LEDs, two stage:
- Standard Brightness, Park (and running) Lights
- Brightest, Brake Lights
Inboard flat lens - White LEDs:
- Backup Lights

Export - in Countries Requiring Switchable Bright Red Rear Fog Lights
- Same as Domestic Except:
Inboard flat lens - White LED (one side only - drivers?):
- Backup Light
Inboard flat lens - Red LED (other side):
- Switchable Rear Red Fog Light

Export - in Countries NOT Requiring Switchable Bright Red Rear Fog Lights
- Same as Domestic
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What do you think? Did I get it right? Does anyone have actual facts?
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