I’ve ridden with Gene a few times recently and that prompts me to discuss this. Gene is one of two people I know who have a Brake Free helmet brake light. This is a device, sized to be clearly visible, that attaches to the back of your helmet, that activates a red light when you decelerate. A brake light. No wires, just motion activated.

I know when I first saw one of these things I thought it was a great idea. I still think it has the potential to be a great idea but it seems to me that it will need some refinement to reach that point.

The problem I’ve seen riding behind Gene (and also Nick, who has one as well) is that they activate too easily. Let’s say you’re on the throttle, adding speed, and then reach your desired speed. You ease off the throttle, or perhaps you cut the throttle abruptly. The light comes on. You’re not braking, you just slowed your momentum. But the light comes on.

Other times you’re just cruising at speed and maybe you ease off on the throttle, not necessarily intentionally, just the normal play on the throttle that is a regular part of riding. The light comes on.

I suppose you could argue that if you’re ceasing to accelerate it’s good for whoever is behind you to know that. Perhaps. Or for that person to know your speed has dropped just a tad. Maybe.

But the overall effect is this: With that light coming on as frequently as it does just during the course of normal riding it creates a boy-who-cried-wolf effect. With it coming on so often, you pretty much just disregard it. It becomes meaningless.

I don’t know if there is some way to calibrate it to only respond under a greater change in velocity; that would be good. And I suppose that if you were hitting your brakes hard and it came on and stayed on, rather than flashing on and off fairly quickly, that might be an important warning.

I’m not saying the things are worthless, I just think they could use some improvement. I had initially considered getting one myself but now before I would do that they would have to get better. That’s just my assessment.

Biker Quote for Today

A woman who rides a motorcycle is in tune with the universe, a candidate for high adventure.

Tags: Brake Free, helmet brake light

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2026 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Motorcycle Gear, Motorcycle Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.