Well in Europe anyway there is by far a big enough difference in brightness between the tail lights and brake lights that you definitely notice when the brake lights are on. There is a very good set of standards that eveything is built too.

Any idea what the standard says about signal lights? Many cars in the US don't have separate signal lights but just flash the brake light instead. This leads to the following unfortunate scenario (which I have had happen to me a couple of times) - the driver ahead signals and then taps the brake with the same frequency as the signal but out of sync. In this case you know the car will be making a turn but you don't know which way!

Borislav