pj8708 Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 U.K. Insurance study claims fog light use in fair weather causes accidents. People who have thier fog lights on all the time say they do it because it looks cool. Insurance group wants it banned in U.K. Does it cause accidents? http://www.autoblog....ccid/#continued
kingnba6 Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 i dont think it causes accidents. unless they are aimed wrong they shouldnt blind anybody. i rather run fogs in daytime them drls just for the fact that they are more subtle then headlights.
pj8708 Posted January 31, 2012 Author Posted January 31, 2012 What do insurance people know? :) My thought exactly!! LOL
The G Man Posted February 1, 2012 Posted February 1, 2012 I think HID and LED low beams are more blinding than properly aimed halogen fog lights. The worst is those kids with the HID kits in reflective housing.
lenore Posted February 1, 2012 Posted February 1, 2012 Actually the best fog lights are yellow in color...When I lived in Spain the fog lights were yellow and they penetrated better for visability. The French cars came with yellow headlamps for this reason. However fog lights properly adjusted are low in their penetration so that the light doesnt reflect back into the drivers eyes.
kingnba6 Posted February 1, 2012 Posted February 1, 2012 thats why i would upgrade my fog lights to either yellow halogens or 3k hids.
LEX-SV Posted February 1, 2012 Posted February 1, 2012 Not famililar with dazzling front fog lights (unless they are incorrectly aimed).
SW03ES Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 I've never seen an oncoming car where I felt dazzled or distracted by the foglights...
lenore Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 Fog lights are supposed to cut the path very low...Their effectiveness is that the light is on a very low beam path so as not to reflect back into the drivers eyes...So on coming traffic should have no difficulty at all.
pj8708 Posted February 2, 2012 Author Posted February 2, 2012 I have seen several cars on which the owner/driver has retrofited the foglights to HID with a high Kelvin rating that are IMO almost too bright to look at. On this site over the last few years I recall more than just a couple of members wanting to convert their OEM fogs to something like HID or more "blue" just because they "looked cool".
kingnba6 Posted February 2, 2012 Posted February 2, 2012 i wouldnt convert my fogs to look cool. i might not live in a always foggy place. but in the rain at night. i put on my 3k hid fogs. and bam i can actually see!
cduluk Posted February 7, 2012 Posted February 7, 2012 I can remember a few times getting distracted by oncoming cars who had "aftermarket" kits in their OEM fogs, and a few times by people in tall "jeeps" with those huge round auxiliary fog lights installed on the front grill facing too high up. But i can't remember any instances of any OEM foglights causing issues. I too have replaced the factory halogen foglights in my Rx400h to "ion yellow" halogens as the yellow really does work better with fog. The reason fog lights work so well is because during foggy conditions normal headlights reflect off of the fog in front of you, causing a giant wall of light between your eyes and the road. The idea with fog lights is that since they're so low, they only shine through a foot or so of fog off of the ground before illuminating the ground. And the darker the color light, the less bright the "wall of fog" will be in front of you. I'm sure dark blue or green would work even better than yellow, but of course, that's illegal... I agree though that people shouldn't be allowed to install HID "kits" into standard halogen foglights, as they're prone to glare. Just stick with halogen if your car came with halogen, or do a proper retrofit of an HID unit.
01lexpl Posted February 7, 2012 Posted February 7, 2012 The front fogs are probably not the big problem here... you guys are ignoring the rear fog on all euro cars. Those are really bright, it can light up A LOT of the road in dark weather. And an eyesore when its nice out and you see a VW running around with the equivalent of a high beam in red facing you.
LEX-SV Posted February 7, 2012 Posted February 7, 2012 Rear foglight is more like a single left brakelamp. Using a rear foglamp in non-foggy conditions is a unsafe distraction in traffic.
pj8708 Posted February 7, 2012 Author Posted February 7, 2012 I can remember a few times getting distracted by oncoming cars who had "aftermarket" kits in their OEM fogs, and a few times by people in tall "jeeps" with those huge round auxiliary fog lights installed on the front grill facing too high up. But i can't remember any instances of any OEM foglights causing issues. I too have replaced the factory halogen foglights in my Rx400h to "ion yellow" halogens as the yellow really does work better with fog. The reason fog lights work so well is because during foggy conditions normal headlights reflect off of the fog in front of you, causing a giant wall of light between your eyes and the road. The idea with fog lights is that since they're so low, they only shine through a foot or so of fog off of the ground before illuminating the ground. And the darker the color light, the less bright the "wall of fog" will be in front of you. I'm sure dark blue or green would work even better than yellow, but of course, that's illegal... I agree though that people shouldn't be allowed to install HID "kits" into standard halogen foglights, as they're prone to glare. Just stick with halogen if your car came with halogen, or do a proper retrofit of an HID unit. You make some good points....One thing that some of the researcher's may not include is the effect of driving at night while it is snowing. Wether or not you use your fog lights, the biggest issue is the effect of snow blowing acrossf your headlights. It is hard to explain if you haven't experienced it, but the effect is almost hypnotic. Not only can you not see very far, but this constant motion of individual white particals passing in front of your eyes, lit up by the head lights and fog lights streaming in front of you second after second just mszmorizes you. Perhaps a twin filament headlight, with both HID and yellow beams would work? lol
cduluk Posted February 8, 2012 Posted February 8, 2012 Oh yeah, Paul! I've noticed the same thing when driving during snowfall, and it's even worse than fog since the snow is "moving". Putting high-beams on when it's snowing is a death sentence. I'm wondering if even replacing the standard halogen high-beams with yellow halogen bulbs would make it easier to see during snowfall? It's be nice to be able to switch the color of your low beams too, toggling between white and yellow! I wouldn't be surprised if some car manufacturer came up with that idea in the future. Seems like a nice and relatively simple idea! LOL
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