Safe Speed Forums

And don't say when its foggy!

I don't generally feel that are too much of a dazzle even on unlit roads so I havent really thought too much about them - Thought they were the domain of nova drivers or people with a shot of daddy's new company car.

However...

Recently I seem to notice more and more that it is buisnessmen, people shopping in tesco, and taxis etc. In fact you can't really narrow it down to a certain group of drivers at all.

Having just bought a car fitted with front foglights (never been high on priority list) I eralise how useless these are when it isn't foggy. I had assumed that they could possibly be usefull on unlit roads with no oncoming traffic to compliment the full beam headlights and decided to give that theory a try on a quiet back road. The first thing I noticed was that it made no noticable difference at all to the long range level of light even used with just the dipped headlights. The seocond thing I noticed was that it flooded the first ten feet or so of road with lots of light that actually distracted my eyes and made it more difficult to see things at a distance.

So my conclusion to - why do people drive with front fogs on?

Threee possible reasons

1. The origional nova guys and the addition of 50bhp from the lights being on

2. People who drive in the ten feet in fron of their bumper.

3. People who think they can surround themselves with a "wall of safety" that cannot be penetrated ie. I can see twice as good upto 10 feet in front so it doesnt matter if theres a wall 15 feet infront.

I am interested in others opinions of this and if theres any benifits of them I have missed.

A pet hate of mine !!

Funny enough I like them on country lanes as a lot around my way have verges that dissapear and the pool of light in front and to the side help light these edges.

As to why when they are not needed??

Look at car ads and brochures, they show the cars with all he lights on including fogs, it's often deemed to be 'cool'.

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On narrow or twisty country lanes, they help light up the verges, and help keep you from clipping them.
However I dont think ANY oncoming vehicle should have to put up with the amount of dazzle they throw up - especially when it is raining.
I also object when drivers come up behind you with them on, since clearly they DONT need to be able to see beyond the back of your vehicle! Unfortunately my Peugeot 406 had a switch which turned the front fogs on with one flick, and rears on with the second flick, meaning you could not join a queue in fog, and leave the rear fogs on, without dazzling the driver in front!

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Ernest that's fairly standard for Peugeot/Citroen cars now.

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

I think a lot of it is ignorance. People just turn on all the lights. I don't think they realise that the front ones are fog lights at all.

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I use them a lot. I live quite high up and there is often low cloud. Fog is pretty rare but they can actually be quite useful on single track unlit roads with no clear edge and big rocks hiding in the long grass at each verge!

At the risk of becoming the new anti fog light campaigner I have to say that after some of the comments on here I went back out tonight to see how the theories so far work.

Obviously not all cars are created equal so the following may be true for only my car. On dark back roads the light spread was only in front of the vehicle with no help of lighting up the verge on either side really. Even when used with the full beam it only created a pool of light directly in front of the bumper. I did also find that if i needed to "dip" the lights then it involves dipping the main beam with my left hand and clicking off the fogs with my right - not really ideal when faced with an unexpected oncoming car.

As i said earlier I dont really find front fogs too dazzling even on unlit roads due to the low mounting position - but in saying that I wouldn't keep mine on in someones face out of courtesy.



A fair point there! Compounded by the fact that they don't auto cancel with the headlight switch as the rear ones do.



God help us all they'll be driving round with the hazards on all the time soon too as per the game show display!

Incidentally whats everyones view on their performance in foggy conditions - looking at the light pattern of mine they look to be pretty limited - but then again I haven't used them in anger yet.

I remember a focus ad talking about sporty front fog lights.

My fogs do light up the verges.However if I put full beam on they turn off.

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Fog is pretty awful stuff to drive in at the best of times. Fog lights (correctly aligned) DO help, but only a little. What you have noticed in clear conditions is pretty much how they are supposed to work. They give a very low, broad, flat-topped beam that focuses a few yards in front of the car. The idea is to try and reduce the scatter and reflection that you get off the tiny droplets in the air. This is why they tend not to dazzle oncoming drivers - they are aligned pretty low down and the beam has a flat top to it so it's pretty hard to shine it in anyone's eyes.

If you put Main Beam on if fog you just get blinded by the reflected light coming back at you. Dipped beam is a bit better, and fog lights are better still - but NONE of them make it a "pleasant" experience!

I agree that in ordinary night driving, they aren't really any use unless you're crawling along looking for somewhere to pull on to the grass verge. In fog / low cloud, when you (should!) be crawling anyway, I find they do help a bit.

Seriously, I'm certain that the reason is that certain people think that using front fogs looks cool. There's a lot of it in car adverts (or used to be). I would guess that this stems from the time when front fogs were an rareish option, or only on higher spec models, and people wanted to show they had 'better' vehicles.

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Paul Smith
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Yes, but they are pretty bad for reflected glare off a wet road. The same applies to dipped headlights, but fog lights do seem worse.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The low position alters the distance at which they reflect up to - plus if your screen is wet, you end up with twice the amount of glare.
No tricks here - look at the window lit up behind the car.
The vehicle which pulled in after I had nipped back to ut the fogs on was a Police Van! I didn't get any strange looks OR questions!

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

In our 406 the foglight switch can be left in the ON position, so that next time you switch on the sidelights the foglights come on as well, whether or not you intend them to be on. It is a crackpot system.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

Worked in London in the late 60's when smog was around - good fogs were a must - had a combination of one fog ( on near side ) and one driving lamp (of side ) low down on my old banger , beam horizontal , fog lamp set slightly toward the pavement and driving lamp straight on , found with mains off great, even in heavy snow (as found on the old A66) ---take no credit for the design - this was the recommendation of Met Trafpol(cause this was in days when you could find one and if asked would take time to help you). Idea was that decent beam of light crept ahead of you and illuminated fog from below, not bouncing back into your face.

I agree with 4by4; they're next to useless in anything but an absolute pea-souper.

Having bought my first car in years to have them this year, I can feel the temptation to use them because they're there, but I must be strong.

The ones I just cannot understand are the sidelights+foglights brigade. OK, so it's dark/murky enough to need foglamps, but not to need dipped beam. Right......

As i said , great in fog /smog/ snow where headlights are reflected back, but in normal night conditions - mind boggles

where do they stand legally? I'd say that using front fog lights when it is not foggy is at best a sign of pig ignorance and would be a good excuse for a bib to stop them and have a chat.

I always try to flash fog lights, maybe we should have a team effort to flash our disapproval.

Have used a FIAT system which automatically switches off fogs if it thinks it's not foggy enough. At least I think that's what it was doing. The other possibility is that it's shit.

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If you look at the photographs I posted, you would see that two fogs and sides would be slightly less irritatiing than fogs and dipped, but it's the low position of the fogs that causes part of the problem.
Factory fitted fogs in the Peugeot 307 are in the main headlamp shell, between the Highbeam lamp and the dipped lamp. I dont have them, but they look too high to be effective to me - which may explain why some of you find they are ineffective, if this is catching on with other make/models.
Like Botach, I was always told the idea was for the light to shine beneath the fog, and reduce the light reflected back by the vapour droplets above the ground.
Experience has been that around here, low cloud is more common than fog, and therefore this works.
Others may find a different result.
We need a simple TV Campaign to dissuade others from inappropriate use.
Picture similar to mine, and a slogan.... "NO FOG?? NO NEED!!"
Run it for a couple of months, then start stopping and fining the b*ggers!

Oh, that would need real policemen....

OK, ring fence the fines for Stephen et al's overtime!

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

Spot on


Or a lack of education by trafpol( def, extremely effictive safety force on UK roads, also very good educational and approachable source of information on all things driving, last seen around the Watford triangle, circa 2003, though it is believed that a rare group exists in Durham, enforcing road safety, with admirable success)