Anti-Foglight Brigade

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Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2004
Posts
10,905
Location
Kent
First thunderstorm of the year here today. Came out of work, absolutely pouring. Roundabout near the A2 flooded. Pulled onto the carriageway, extremely heavy spray, maximum speed was about 50MPH, if you were lucky. Visibility poor, and my car is quite small and low so turned on both front and rear foglights.

Halfway home, a light blue Saab pulls out behind me about 50-60 metres back. Gives me a 3 second long blast of full beam, flashes his fogs. Turns off his full beam, and flashes the fogs at me again. Clearly irate at me using them.

Why? I'm no lover of foglights. Rarely see the need for them. But in this situation, they were ideal. The spray on the A2 is incredibly bad as the tarmac is poor grade in areas - a car without lights could easily be rendered invisible int he downpour we've just had. If I'd had foglights on on a clear day, I might understand his reaction, but I honestly cant t believe he couldn't understand why I turned them on.

Anyway, I ignored him. It just irked me and I felt the need to vent. Ironically, if he was trying to be a Road Safety Hero, he undermined his-self further up the road by undertaking then pulling in front of me without bothering to indicate then sped off as though it was a dry day.

Oh, I turned off the foglights the moment I got off the motorway too, before I get any of his friends turn up to deride me for being a boy racer or some such.
 
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PardonTheWait said:
Because they dazzle and glare.

Otherwise, they would be called rain lights.
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There were several other people using their foglights. They didn't dazzle or glare. In fact, they were incredibly useful, as without them they would have been hard to see.

Perhaps I wasn't clear enough (lul). This wasn't light rain, and some minor misting. This was a deluge, and at rush hour with a lot of heavy vehicles using the road combined with the aforementioned poor grade surface, there is a huge amount of road spray. Such that visibility at ground level was seriously impaired. Vehicles not using their foglights were hard to see even with their sidelights on. Some cars had no lights whatsoever, and were almost lost completely in the spray.
 
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It's a motorway, you're all travelling the same direction. Fog lights are not going to help light up cars in front of you very much if at all. Or are you talking about rear fog as well?

In that sort of weather on a motorway it's all about protecting your rear and rear quarters. If you're confident with your ability and have a decent stopping distance, the worry is not what is in front.

PS: If you were behind me on that motorway in those conditions I would have very probably had to have dipped my mirror. Which would have made it more dangerous for me - not being to see properly behind me. So please think about others...
 
I live in Sidcup and was coming down the A20 from west malling leaving work and it was the same.

People had theres on and it was needed couldnt see anything in front of my car.
 
The clue is in the name. It wasn't foggy, therefore don't turn them on.

If visibility is less than 100m then slow down. It's not difficult.
 
So how far was this saab actuall behind you, i am sure it said around 100 metres before you edited...

In which case you could make it out so the conditions weren't poor enough to warrant you having fogs on.
 
NathanE said:
It's a motorway, you're all travelling the same direction. Fog lights are not going to help light up cars in front of you very much if at all. Or are you talking about rear fog as well?
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Yes, rear fogs on as well. I didn't turn them on to increase how far I could see, simply to make sure I was more visible.

NathanE said:
PS: If you were behind me on that motorway in those conditions I would have very probably had to have dipped my mirror. Which would have made it more dangerous for me - not being to see properly behind me. So please think about others...
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I find it hard to believe that you would be that dazzled by the foglights of a following car in daylight on a rain sodden road that you would have to dip your mirror (unless it's because the Elise is that low, but even so I cant see that being a problem unless the following car is very close - which it wouldn't be in these sort of conditions).

As above I had several cars behind me with their front foglights on. Not once was I dazzled. It only made them easier to see in my mirror. Please don't make out that my motives were selfish. Visibility was severely impaired and I use some extra lighting to ensure my car was as visible as possible. I wasn't doing it for kicks...
 
Fog lights in a deluge, fair enough imo.

What erks me is when people switch them on at the first drop of a light shower.

Fog lights can dazzle, never mind in an Elise - I often get dazzle whilst in my truck through people & their fog lights....
 
Normally in rain, even fairly heavy, I'd say not to use them, but we were driving down the M6 once and just south of Carlisle the heavens opened and you literally couldn't see more than 20 feet in front and the cars using fog lights were a lot lot easier to see...

Insane tho - most people dropped down to ~30mph but you'd still get people coming past easily doing 80+ :(
 
Fog lights. Its all in the name.

As others have said, they can dazzle other drivers and unless visibility is less than 100M there is no need for them. In my 5 years of driving I can count the times I have genuinely needed fog lights on one hand.
 
Vigoro said:
So how far was this saab actuall behind you, i am sure it said around 100 metres before you edited...

In which case you could make it out so the conditions weren't poor enough to warrant you having fogs on.
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You're right, I did edit. It wasn't as far as that probably, I just threw a round number out there while quickly typing the post. But then I realised someone would call me up on it because the highway code says not to use them unless visibility is >100m.
 
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