Trucking news and briefs for Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026:
- Sensor-activated flashing rear lights? Lighting manufacturer requests waiver to allow.
- Fleet wants exemption from FMCSA for flashing rear brake lights.
Lighting company requests exemption for flashing brake lights
Vehicle lighting manufacturer Grote Industries has petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for an exemption that would allow motor carriers to operate CMVs equipped with auxiliary rear or side lamps that flash or strobe when controlled by Grote’s Rear-End Collision Warning (RCW) system.
Grote’s request would allow motor carriers the use of one or more non-steady-burning auxiliary lamps installed symmetrically about the vertical centerline on the rear or sides of trucks when used in conjunction with Grote’s RCW system.
The company’s RCW system uses rear-facing, long-range radar to calculate time-to-collision (TTC) for vehicles approaching from behind and activates auxiliary warning lamps when a collision risk threshold is reached. The system activates a signal circuit when the TTC is less than or equal to a specific safety threshold – typically between 2.1 and 4.0 seconds – which represents the average time required for a driver and vehicle to react to a hazard.
Under the request, when the RCW system detects an imminent risk, the auxiliary lamps would either be:
- Red in color and flash 4–16 times within four seconds, or
- Amber in color and function as an SAE J595 Class 3 or Class 2 strobe lamp for up to four seconds.
Following either initial sequence, the lamps burn steady red for the remaining duration of the warning event as long as the collision risk persists. Once the potential risk has subsided and the TTC exceeds the safety threshold, the signal circuit is deactivated, ending the warning event and turning off the auxiliary lamps.
Grote emphasized that it is not seeking relief from existing safety requirements, but rather permission to install additional safety equipment beyond that required by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, and believes granting the exemption would achieve a level of safety equivalent to or greater than the level of safety achieved without the exemption.
Comments on the request can be filed here through March 11.
Bulk tanker fleet seeks waiver for pulsating brake lights
Similarly, 83-truck Liberty Bulk Transport has requested an exemption to be allowed to install the Intellistop lighting module that pulses the rear clearance, identification, and brake lamps from low-level lighting intensity to high-level lighting intensity four times in two seconds when the brakes are applied. FMCSA has granted similar exemptions to other fleets in the past.
In its request, Liberty said pulsing the rear brake lamps of a CMV may significantly increase visibility and reduce the frequency of rear-end crashes, and thus would maintain a level of safety that is equivalent to, or greater than, the level that the CMV would achieve without the requested exemption.
Comments on Liberty’s request can be filed here through March 12.
[Related: FMCSA grants fleet's pulsating brake light exemption request]
