In the late twentieth century, Germany car designers had a fetish for putting brake light in the smallest, least obvious part of the tail light assembly. It was a strange phenomenon that was largely a Germanic trend (with a few Japanese exceptions) that has risen from the ashes with the proliferation of LED technology today.

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Take the E32 above, rocking period-correct blocky lamps in the timeless BMW L-pattern. To the lay person, the square section below the turn signal is what's going to light up - right?

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But as weird enthusiasts whose families shun us for bringing this up on Thanksgiving, we know that the brake lamp is that peculiar vertical strip that's just inset on each side. All of this lamp acreage, but that's the only part that lights up to brake.

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Why? Besides the theory that it's a product of the boredom of designers in Munich - after all, once you make the side crease with your ruler, you can home for the day - I can only theorize that it was seen as a defining feature of German luxury at the time. And it wasn't confined to BMW:

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Mercedes similarly chose to utilize a mere 20% of the light area for, you know, the most commonly used and important function of rear lights. A phenomenon repeated in the E34, W116, W126, A8 - the list goes on.

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Now this trend faded away in the late nineties and early aughts with the shockingly late shift towards a little thing called aerodynamics. Curves, blobs and rounded triangles replaced the square excellence of the post-war period, and with it the expansion of the are used for brake lights. See the triangular magnificence of the W220 as an example of that change (I like that generation, sue me).

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But like all things human-related, history has a funny way of repeating itself. Only this time, our friends in Japan have grabbed the retro bull by the proverbial horns and revived this tradition.

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The trickle-down of LEDs in brake lights to volume, lower-priced models has been an embarrassingly long time coming. I mean, we sent rovers to Mars in the 2000s but still used ancient incandescent bulbs in critical lighting features on most cars since the turn of the millennium for cost reasons.

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We are frustrating as a species, aren't we? But I digress.

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This proliferation of LED usage is fantastic for visibility, gives designers leeway to make fascinating shapes and makes economy cars look premium. But both of these excellent benefits are forgotten when Toyota and Mazda's current design teams are on the clock. Behold, the return of the trend of lighting up the smallest possible area while still being legal:

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THIS. That outrageously small corner of the entire assembly is the actual brake light. The DRL is given 98% of the horizontal length of the lens, and a single LED is tasked with protecting others from rearranging the bumper with their faces.

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Now, some of you will argue that it's an LED and is super bright at night. And you're right! It is bright........at night. In the day, it is barely noticeable and completely up to the CHMSL to signal the RAV4's intentions.

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Why? Why is this the way they decided to do it? Rather than molding the DRL light pipe in a neat new way, they took the well trodden L-shape design and made it less functional. There is literally zero reason to design the lights like this other than an apparent desire to project luxury by taking a page out of the BMW playbook from the late eighties.

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And it realistically can't be a cost-cutting measure, because 1) LEDs cost essentially nothing now(even to ruthless car company bean counters) and 2) if it was truly about cost, then make the whole damn thing one incandescent bulb!

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Mazda is hammered on the proverbial German koolaid with their recently launched CX-60 too:

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A big, gorgeous C-clamp LED light pipe. Scowling, angry eye angle to the top corner. Beautiful, modern and very contemporary Mazda, if not a bit nouveau BMW. And the only part that lights up for braking is a strip that is likely no longer than six inches and an inch high. LEDs be damned, this simply is not enough luminary real estate to get the job done.

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See, an overlooked part of human sensory perception is the predictability of signals in a rapidly-changing situation. In a panic braking moment, where perhaps the driver behind is distracted and looks up at the last moment, their eye needs to fall to something familiar for clues whether to brake. Obviously that will be the tail lights and most likely the outer corners - because that's where all brake lights are!

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But in the daylight, with various lighting effects from the environment like glare and reflections to contend with, there are so many ways that a singular LED will be lost in the visual noise of the moment. Instead of a large, obvious square of light appearing, a minuscule piece of the tail light flicks on in a position that the casual driver is likely not expecting.

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At least the E32 and W140 had a comparatively large square that lit up- well, large compared to Toyota's singular Christmas tree light on the RAV4.

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I'm willing to bet that there have been a not statistically insignificant number of fender benders with RAV4s, Mazda 3s and CX-5s that were caused by this inane design choice, that were labelled as casual carelessness. Take away 95% of the expected real estate of a key vehicular behavioural clue, and the math speaks for itself.

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And unfortunately, it's spreading west from Japan over to China via a container ship called Ford:

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Nicely done, folks. Nicely done, an LED line not connected to any other part of the new Mondeo's tail light. Let's mix vertical and horizontal lines, because that is classic visual harmony. And the it's SUV lineup cousin, the just-introduced Everest has been talking to the same people:

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Idiotic.

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At least our friend, the Heckblende, is coming back strong to rescue us from this dimly lit nonsense. But in the meantime, if you're behind a new RAV4 or Mazda SUV?

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Maybe give yourself a bit of extra space.

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