Or are you saying that you don’t want them to think you have a skill issue ?
I live in a semi mountainous area, where people driving automatics ride their brakes most of the way down the mountains. (Relatively small mountains, elevations ranging from 1,900-2,700 with the surrounding area around 1,000-1,100 elevation. So not the same necessity of engine braking as somewhere out west where the elevation is 3-6k average with mountains up to 12-14k).
holding your speed or decellerating mildly is not the same as braking. if i gear down into a higher rpm and hold my speed, or perhaps decel ever so slightly - its not worth alerting the driver behind you. most people over-react to brake lights and will see your brakes as "I should apply brakes too" when in this particularly case, they should not.
I can't think of a single circumstance where compression braking should cause a brake light to illuminate. the rate of decelleration is so small compared to even a gentle tap of the brakes, that it will merely confuse drivers behind you.
If I tap my brake lights as they’re approaching, they slow more gradually and follow at an appropriate distance.
This is anecdotal of course.
I think the issue is that I’m using engine braking, while those around me are not.
When one is driving downhill with a car in gear, one is maintaining speed, not slowing down. Hence there is no need to show a brake light.
Driving down a long hill using (friction) brakes to maintain your speed is a quick way to cause excessive wear on your brakes and, in extreme cases, lead to overheating and brake fade or failure.
This is required knowledge for the UK driving test BTW.
However, I frequently see drivers fly down the mountain behind me, and then brake heavily. The drivers in front of me, have their brake lights on in front of me usually the entire time or nearly.
However: high compression engines will slow you at a rate similar to light braking in many circumstances, unless your gearing and the slope of the hill is just right.
On my motorcycle, if I’ve downshifted to an amount that it will stop acceleration due to the slope, it will begin to decelerate me.
Even in my current car, the difference between 3rd and 4th is 4th allowing the car to continue to accelerate to ~20 mph over the speed limit, where 3rd will hold briefly but begin to decelerate the vehicle as the slope decreases. While I can shift between them to moderate the speed, it’s not always worthwhile. Again, I’m applying specific scenarios where the “mountain” road is maybe 1-1.5 miles maximum.
The specific scenario I dislike is that if I’m using engine braking(say to maintain 35-43 mph in a 35 zone), and don’t tap my brake lights - people fly down doing 60, and the brake heavily, tailgate for a period, and then follow at a normal distance.
If I tap my brakes to trigger the lights as they approach, they begin to slow further away and don’t do the hard slowdown.
Anecdotal of course.
The difference may be that where I am in the USA many people are not using engine braking.