Patent ID: 7400237

Claim:
A signaling system for use in a vehicle to provide a signal indicative of a change in vehicle speed, the signaling system comprising: a housing; a displaceable member moveable relative to the housing from a first rest position to each of a forward displaced position and a rearward displaced position, wherein the displaceable member is displaced from the first rest position to one of the forward displaced position and the rearward displaced position in response to movement of the vehicle caused by a threshold minimum change in vehicle speed; a guide member for resiliently biasing said displaceable member to said rest position; a forward switch assembly positioned relative to said housing so as to be transiently activated when said displaceable member is in the forward displaced position; a rearward switch assembly positioned relative to said housing so as to be transiently activated when said displaceable member is in the rearward displaced position; an indicator signal positioned in a location selected to be visible to an operator of another vehicle, the indicator signal electrically coupled to the forward switch assembly, wherein activation of the forward switch assembly activates the indicator signal to provide a visual signal indicative of a vehicle slowing; and an acceleration signal positioned in a location selected to be visible to the operator of another vehicle, the acceleration signal electrically coupled to the rearward switch assembly, wherein activation of the rearward switch assembly activates the acceleration signal to provide a visual speeding-up signal, and wherein each of the indicator signal and acceleration signal is adapted for positioning on the vehicle in a location selected to be visible to the operator of another vehicle, said location selected from at least one of: (a) a position in at least one of a rear windshield of the vehicle and a front windshield of the vehicle; and (b) a position adjacent at least one of a headlamp and a brake lamp, a signal controller actuable by both the forward switch assembly and the rearward switch assembly, the signal controller operable to effect a signal feature of each of the indicator signal and the acceleration signal selected from the group consisting of signal illumination, signal intensity, signal frequency and signal extinguishment, wherein upon activation by one of the forward switch assembly or the rearward switch assembly, the signal controller is operable to effect a change in the signal intensity of the respective one of the indicator signal and the acceleration signal to produce either a slowing signal or a speeding up signal with a predetermined brightness, and wherein the brake lamp comprises a first filament operable as a braking signal and a second filament operable as the indicator signal, wherein activation of the indicator signal by the signal controller effects the change in the signal intensity of the indicator signal to produce the slowing signal with a predetermined brightness less than a brightness of the braking signal.