Congress clears flashing brake lights to cut rear-end crashes
H.R. 1361 — Collision Avoidance Systems Act of 2025 · Filed by Daniel Webster (R-FL) · 47 cosponsors · Introduced Feb 13, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill allows vehicles to use pulsating (flashing) high-mounted brake lights that pulse up to 4 times for 1.2 seconds when the brake is applied, then switch to a steady light. The Department of Transportation must issue regulations within 180 days to set performance standards and formally permit this technology, which proponents argue helps prevent rear-end collisions by drawing driver attention more effectively than steady brake lights alone.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a clarification and rulemaking directive to permit and standardize a specific collision-avoidance technology (pulsating brake lights). It is a straightforward safety regulation, not a tax measure, appropriation, or industry carve-out.
What the text implies
- Automakers will need to engineer and test pulsating brake-light systems to comply with DOT performance standards, creating compliance costs that may be passed to consumers as an optional or standard feature.
- The 180-day rulemaking window is tight; if DOT standards are unclear or overly prescriptive, aftermarket adoption may lag, limiting the safety benefit to new vehicles.
- Pulsating lights may create visual fatigue or distraction in high-traffic environments if many vehicles use them simultaneously; the bill does not address cumulative perceptual effects.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary drivers benefit from a safety technology that may reduce rear-end collisions, a leading cause of injury and death. The bill imposes no new costs on citizens and does not restrict rights or protections; it expands a safety option. The regulatory requirement ensures standards are performance-based rather than arbitrary.
Who stands to gain
- automotive manufacturers (engineering and production of pulsating brake-light systems)
- automotive suppliers (brake-light components and control modules)
- aftermarket automotive parts suppliers
Named in the bill
Department of Transportation, Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard Number 108, 49 CFR 571.108, automotive manufacturers, automotive suppliers
Where it stands
47 cosponsors: 25 Republicans, 22 Democrats.
- Feb 13, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 13, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce and House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
7 lobbying clients named this bill on 10 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $972,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 1 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 86% of bills with at least one filing.
Daniel Webster, the sponsor, reported $199,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Trucking Associations — $720,000 on 1 filing
- Williams & Lake, LLC — $180,000 on 2 filings
- Sbt Distributors LLC — $30,000 on 2 filings
- Williams & Lake, LLC — $30,000 on 2 filings
- Sbt Distributors LLC — $12,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,423 characters) on Sep 5, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-21.
“Congress clears flashing brake lights to cut rear-end crashes” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr1361 Report an error
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