Relay tail lights?

[ggehrke at gmail.com (GGehrke)]

> Electrical current flows at a speed approaching the speed of light and
> the typical Bosch relay is close to instant, so I doubt you'd have the
> problem you fear in the brake lights.

Any idea, though, exactly how "close to instant" it is?  For example,
Incandescent bulbs take as much as 200ms to light (according to the
sources I've found online).  At 75mph, 200ms is 22 feet.  LED tail
lights, on the other hand, respond truly instantly (1ms according to
the internet).  So if you were using LEDs over incandescent bulbs, the
yahoo behind you would have an additional 22 feet to start trying to
keep his land yacht out of the ass end of my tiny Scirocco.  I really
don't want to get rear ended in this car.  It's probably total it and
I'd almost positively bawl like a little baby.

> To get the most out of a relayed brake light circuit, you should have
> a strong +12 volts in the trunk that is fed to the bulbs when the
> relay (located there) is triggered.  You could run a large wire from

I probably should have metioned that the battery is going in the back...  :D

> As far as relaying the running lights, the problem with that is they
> (particularly on my 75 mk1) are spread all over the car.  You could do
> it, but I think it would require either lots of larger wire or several
> relays to make any real difference.

Well, I'm thinking of running the front corners directly off the low
beams (same relay) and the rears I'd just use run a second smaller
trigger wire to the back to a relay right next to the tail lights. 
There are those side repeaters -- are they running lights or turns? 
They haven't ever worked in either of my cars anyways...  I intend to
weld that hole shut next time I paint it.
I'm plaing with the feasibility of adding side turn signals to the
side mirrors.  That'd be pretty sweet.
I'm also thinking of adding lamp out indicators to the car.  I
recently picked up a book called "50 Awesome Auto Projects for the
Evil Genius" that has all sorts of electrical hack projects you can
build.  One of them uses reed switches and inductance to figure out if
there's current running to a bulb.  If there isn't, it lights a little
warning indicator LED on the dash somewhere to let you know the bulb
is dead.  Pretty trick.

-Grant-