Do These Brake Lights Make My Rear Look Big?
And other questions pertaining to the Christian life
Nothing is more commanding than brake lights on the vehicle in front of you. The traffic light may be green, but if the car in front of you has stepped on the brakes and you see red brake lights, you will stop too (unless you are looking at your cell phone and don’t notice).
Once I drove a vehicle that had a cracked windshield, an unreliable starter, a horn that didn’t work and an assortment of other issues that we ignored, but when one of my brake light bulbs burnt out, my husband purchased a bulb immediately. I hadn’t even noticed it wasn’t working.
I watched my husband contort himself into impossible positions in the trunk of this car to change the brake light bulb — in the Walmart parking lot.
“Why?” I had said, knowing I had two other working lights to indicate when I am braking. Our home was just 15 minutes away.
“It’s the law,” he replied. “If you’re in an accident and a brake light is out, you’ll be held liable.”
(It’s true. While some state laws merely indicate that you must have two working brake lights that are visible even in daylight from 300 feet away, U.S. federal law declares you must have a functioning third “stop lamp” in car models 1986…
