Learned something new today, from the Irish review Daox posted: The numbers all add up to great effect for Mitsubishi (independent.ie) ...
I'd never heard of that system before.But being cheap does not mean that Mitsubishi has skimped on its new five-door model. Standard equipment in the one-litre Invite version is [...] emergency stop signal system
Fortunately, Wikipedia knows all ...
The point of such systems is to give a heightened alert (in addition to the normal brake lights) to following drivers that a sudden slowdown or stop has happened ahead.Emergency Stop Signal (ESS) [...] a special light signal when the vehicle is braked rapidly and severely. This is officially referred to as "Emergency Stop Signal", and UN Regulation 48 calls for the lamps providing the ESS to flash at 4 Hz when a passenger car decelerates at greater than 6 m/s2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automot...gnal_.28ESS.29
I've seen 4-way "hazard" flashers come on in some vehicles immediately following a crash (in YouTube videos) and assumed it was automatically triggered. But I didn't know it could also be triggered just by hard braking.
There's a bit more info posted at the Wiki entry, if you're interested.
And here's a demonstration: watch the center-mounted LED brake light