There aren’t a lot of revolutions in turn signal technology. It mainly revolves around the bulbs, and not much has changed since. Today, they’re mostly powered by LEDs, but they’ve been doing the same task since 1938, when the Buick of that year had them fitted as standard. Yes, there’s the sequential light craze these days, but that’s actually been around since the ’60s
But over at Toyota, more specifically parts company Koito, wants to stir things up a bit. It’s not gimmicky by any means either, and we think it’s potentially lifesaving for vulnerable road users like pedestrians and cyclists.
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Dubbed the Signal Road Projection system, it does exactly what it says. It, er, projects a series of chevrons on to the pavement and can throw light around blind corners. That way, more people can tell that they can expect a car to pop out of there at any given moment. On top of that, it’s extra visibility for other motorists.
What’s amusing is the fact that this whole arrangement doesn’t require extensive changes to the headlight cluster. So, how did Koito manage to do that without resorting to a heavy, expensive, and complex system? You have advances in LED tech to thank for, as all it needs is a single diode and a pair of reflectors. With that, it also allows for flexible application in other Toyota models.
Curiously, the first vehicle that comes with this tech is the Toyota Corolla Cross. Normally, you’d expect something like this in a flagship vehicle like a Crown, Land Cruiser, or Alphard. Still, it’s nice to see it fitted in a mainstream model, and it even comes standard in the Z and GR Sport variants of the compact crossover.
Hopefully, it’s a feature we see more often, but just on Toyota vehicles, but on other brands as well. Given that Koito supplies a good chunk of parts to Japanese automakers, it might be possible.
