Howdy, Folks. WildcatOne here. As you may have seen on the front page of HotRodThunder.com, I have a third brake light in George now. The reason for having it was inspired by a real-life experience, and I would like to relate the facts to you so you will hopefully strongly consider getting one for your classic ride.

One Friday night in February '09, I was on my way home in George from the Home Depot hot rod gathering in Friendswood. It's a nice thing to do on nights when I'm off from band duties. Great cars, good people, good times. Anyway, I was sitting at a stoplight on FM 518 at a well-lit intersection, waiting for the light to change and BAM CLANG UGH.
I was rear-ended by a late-model Chevy Nova. She was going about 10 mph when she hit me. As far as I could tell, she was braking for the stripe and did not see me in front of her. She gets out, walks over to me, points her cell phone at me and says "I didn't SEE you!" I got her to pull into the parking lot at the church this took place in front of, and we exchanged insurance and driver's license information. She never put the cell phone down. It stayed in her left hand the whole time. She never was fully focused on what happened even after she hit me.

She was texting when she hit me. As she said, she didn't SEE me right in front of her. It was suggested to me while George was in the shop getting fixed and getting a whole new paint job (she paid for it) that the reason she didn't see me was because she didn't see the THIRD BRAKE LIGHT that everybody else has...the 2 tail lights down low were not visible over her text screen which she holds directly in front of her eyes at 12 o'clock on the steering wheel while she's driving and texting somebody at the same time, which she and millions of other stupid, clueless idiots are doing now. Both Mikes...the Pro 60 Chevy drag racer in Massachusetts and the 36 Chevy Phantom Kruiser in Friendswood told me the same thing:

GET A THIRD BRAKE LIGHT...NOW.

Mike Casella sent me one that he had used in his '32 a while back. It's great...10 inches wide and 3/4" high, with an adjustable base. I very carefully fabricated a bracket for it to go in the behind-the-rear-seat luggage compartment...it was difficult because of the convergence of the compartment and the rear window, where they come together is a very convoluted angle and it needed space to sit there at 0 degrees so it would point straight back once it was in place. After a couple of days of measuring, calculating angles, doing geometry, sawing and bending metal strips then JB-welding them together and then painting them black, I had a bracket that was a perfect fit with one inch to spare back there.

I took the finished bracket with the third brake light installed on it and JB-welded in place down to George Karacostas, a guy who lives down in Hitchcock who is a master Bug Doctor. George looked at George and said "Hmm...interesting!" and I relied on his rewiring expertise to hook that thing up. He spliced the wires into the left rear brake light wire and ran it via a series of clamps down inside the firewall and inside engine panels to the brake light so the wires wouldn't be exposed. It works perfectly.

I haven't had another incident; the thing lights up the whole street when I step on it, as the photo with my son Kyle letting me know I'm #1 attempts to show. I just thought it would be important to let everybody know about it, I'm sure you've all thought about it, but in this day and age with cell phone-incapacitated idiots driving around out there, that at the very least this is something we ALL would be smart to have. When our cars were built, they didn't have cell phones, and third brake lights were just not invented yet. As with George, neither was a passenger-side outside mirror...that's my next project. A third brake light can serve as a deterrent to somebody driving right into you, who knows, it just might work for you.

Anyway, safe cruising and racing to all and have a great weekend. Thanks for reading. WC1