I found the car in front of me, during the parade, had brake lights that didn't work all of the time. I think it was a GA car in front of us and the brake lights only came on 20% of the time...if at all.
Many cars only have the top two lens wired for brake lights and others appear to have power problems as the light goes a little brighter, but the bottom lamps almost turn off.
This is strange that you bring this up. The cars hardest to see are the red cars with poor brake lights.
Just my $0.02 worth.