Use Of Foglamps When There Is No Fog..aarrgghh!

[Keith Bowler]

Are you fed up with being blinded by boy racers driving with foglights in perfect visibility.

I for one am, does anyone know what the rules are here.

Seems like my local police force are too as it appears that you face a fixed penalty if you use them when there is no fog.

Guess I have answered my own question.

What are your views?

[Rob]

illegal to use fog lights unless in cases of severe reduced visibility 100yds i think

fixed penalty si the fine.

[mudzs]

yep i hate it to ,got done for it a few years back in a honda i had ,was cleaning car and switched them on by mistake ,got pulled over about 100 yards from my house and fined £30 .what amazes me is the amount of cars that have no warning light on the dash for front fogs the gs300 being one of them

[MyronAub]

yep i hate it to ,got done for it a few years back in a honda i had ,was cleaning car and switched them on by mistake ,got pulled over about 100 yards from my house and fined £30 .what amazes me is the amount of cars that have no warning light on the dash for front fogs the gs300 being one of them

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If I'm driving on my own on the motorway and come up behind someone doing this then I'll often overtake, pull in front and switch my own on to try and get the message across.

I know its not big or clever but it does make me feel better!

And don't start me on otherwise empty stretches of 3 lane motorway with some idiot in the middle lane.

[ColinBarber]

what amazes me is the amount of cars that have no warning light on the dash for front fogs the gs300 being one of them

Another reason for you to get that series II GS ;)

[mudzs]

what amazes me is the amount of cars that have no warning light on the dash for front fogs the gs300 being one of them

Another reason for you to get that series II GS ;)

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your not wrong colin i realy fancy a mk11 GS430 and have been looking for the last few weeks ,seems the new gs is gonna knock the price down a bit so am gonna wait a while ,still some excellent examples out there though.one of my biggest concerns is having to rely on lexus dealers for bits for it as my experiance with the mk1 has not been good when it comes to lexus dealers ,seems they all think thier :tsktsk: don't stink ,mind you when you tell them you have a mk1 i think they look down on you ,salesmen today at lexus said you cant buy a decent lexus with 10k ,i am sure theres a few on here that will disagree with that

[MrADeveci]

Yes, the offence for driving with your fog lights on, when your visibility is not less than 100 meters, is a ticket.

A Non endorce'able ticket of £30.

Regards,

[lexi1]

I dont do this personally, but if i am 100% honest i cant see the problem. I can say truthfully that i have never been blinded by a set of fog lights, the only time my vision has ever been effected is by oncoming HID lighting which is obviously going to become more popular. I dont see why this upsets so many people, i think personally it is a mind thing because you no the other person shouldnt have them on. Like i said i dont do this myself but i do think on some more upmarket cars IS200 included the fog lights do enhance the look of a nice car. I no i am now going to get slated for this reply so hopefully all you guys that do drive with your fog lights on will give me some support.

[lexi1]

Before someone points out that my banner shows a picture of my car with the fog lights on. Note, i did say i think they enhance the look of some vehicles. The fog lights on my banner were on purely for picture purposes as were my main lights, as the picture was taken in the day.

[Kazi]

I dont do this personally, but if i am 100% honest i cant see the problem. I can say truthfully that i have never been blinded by a set of fog lights, the only time my vision has ever been effected is by oncoming HID lighting which is obviously going to become more popular. I dont see why this upsets so many people, i think personally it is a mind thing because you no the other person shouldnt have them on. Like i said i dont do this myself but i do think on some more upmarket cars IS200 included the fog lights do enhance the look of a nice car. I no i am now going to get slated for this reply so hopefully all you guys that do drive with your fog lights on will give me some support.

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I can see where you're coming from.

[MrADeveci]

I dont do this personally, but if i am 100% honest i cant see the problem. I can say truthfully that i have never been blinded by a set of fog lights, the only time my vision has ever been effected is by oncoming HID lighting which is obviously going to become more popular. I dont see why this upsets so many people, i think personally it is a mind thing because you no the other person shouldnt have them on. Like i said i dont do this myself but i do think on some more upmarket cars IS200 included the fog lights do enhance the look of a nice car. I no i am now going to get slated for this reply so hopefully all you guys that do drive with your fog lights on will give me some support.

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You have never been dazzled by oncoming fog lights ? ...... I must say ...... usually cars do 'look nicer' with them on ........ but, they do dazzle your eyes ... or well, at least mine they do ! :)

[BESTY]

I dont do this personally, but if i am 100% honest i cant see the problem. I can say truthfully that i have never been blinded by a set of fog lights, the only time my vision has ever been effected is by oncoming HID lighting which is obviously going to become more popular. I dont see why this upsets so many people, i think personally it is a mind thing because you no the other person shouldnt have them on. Like i said i dont do this myself but i do think on some more upmarket cars IS200 included the fog lights do enhance the look of a nice car. I no i am now going to get slated for this reply so hopefully all you guys that do drive with your fog lights on will give me some support.

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i agree mate,i cant see the problem either,a few cars have had there fogs on and they dont dazzle at all.must be a way of clawing back money into the government,usual rip off.i wonder who makes these laws up.

[lexi1]

So far so good, really thought i would get slated on my view but it seems i am not alone.

[DAZA_W]

I dont do this personally, but if i am 100% honest i cant see the problem. I can say truthfully that i have never been blinded by a set of fog lights, the only time my vision has ever been effected is by oncoming HID lighting which is obviously going to become more popular. I dont see why this upsets so many people, i think personally it is a mind thing because you no the other person shouldnt have them on. Like i said i dont do this myself but i do think on some more upmarket cars IS200 included the fog lights do enhance the look of a nice car. I no i am now going to get slated for this reply so hopefully all you guys that do drive with your fog lights on will give me some support.

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i agree they dont bother me at all you get the odd one or two who have fitted them there self and the postioning is all over the place but generally if the car is fitted with them standard they are normally all right

has for HID now they do blind you even though i wish my car had them on

daz

[BESTY]

So far so good, really thought i would get slated on my view but it seems i am not alone.

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i often get slated but we all have our own views mate, :D

[Jiberjaber]

For all those who say that teh front fogs dont blind you, then you must only encounter then on flat level roads. If you get one coming towards you on a hill, then they will dazzle you, this is even worse if it is raining or the roads are very wet. I would be amazed if you could say otherwise tbh...

What is more worrying now is the number of muppets who now drive around with their side lights on and only their side lights on... why use minimal running lights and dangerously dazzeling fog lights and then claim that it helps to see better, when in fact if they turned on their main lights correctly and turned off the fogs, they would be see the road better illuminated!!!

The biggest reason I hear for front fog lights being on (well second to thinking the car looks cool with them on) is that they can see the edges of the road better. If you cant see the edges of the road, SLOW DOWN so you can see them better. !!!!

Bahhhhhh

/rant mode off :) :shutit:

[lexi1]

I dont think they dazzle as much as HID's mate and they are totallly legal. By the way i haven,t got a problem with HID's either, just making the comparison.

[ColinBarber]

Cannot say I've been dazzled by OEM HIDs, normally it's poorly adjusted standard lights.

I don't have a problem with fogs if the dipped beams are on as well. As Jiberjaber has said it's the idiots that drive with only them on, fog lights are designed to only light the road a few meters in front of you, by the time you see something it may well be too late.

[bitonw]

fog lights are for fog only full stop!

as colinbarber sad before they are designed to use in the fog.

in the olderdays you had those diy fog lights and they are the worst. self adjusted, ufo lights we called them.

but anyway in this world were we don't care about others then or self.. yeah, you see many people with fog lights on as fashion...

[Parthiban]

I dont do this personally, but if i am 100% honest i cant see the problem. I can say truthfully that i have never been blinded by a set of fog lights, the only time my vision has ever been effected is by oncoming HID lighting which is obviously going to become more popular. I dont see why this upsets so many people, i think personally it is a mind thing because you no the other person shouldnt have them on. Like i said i dont do this myself but i do think on some more upmarket cars IS200 included the fog lights do enhance the look of a nice car. I no i am now going to get slated for this reply so hopefully all you guys that do drive with your fog lights on will give me some support.

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I agree with this too, because its never happened to me either, on any type of road, I've always assumed its because fog lights point slightly downwards, and as they're so low down, its not really in the line of sight.

HIDs don't bother me either, its only those absolute :tsktsk: who drive around with their full beams on, which is totally blinding whether they're coming in the opposite direction or if they're behind you, never see them getting pulled over and fined ;)

[mudzs]

i have been dazzled by foglights but no were near as much as the HIDs that are in the new mercs bms etc they give out a white light and you can spot them a mile of ,of cause i could be wrong and it might just be the people that have fitted aftermarket bulbs that are much brighter anyone else got any veiws on this .also have you noticed the type of people that drive with the fogs on ,90% of the time it is always a young male with the sounds on trying to look like jack the lad .i agree they do make the car look better but at the end of the day they are ilegal as scarfafe said .

[Monster-Mat]

are we talking front Fog lights here...................or Front driving lamps, there is a difference, and once won the argument with a Policeman, when i showed him my User manual.which stated front driving lamps!!!

[mudzs]

Good point i wonder how hard it would be to change the use of the foglights into driving lamps or is it just the position of them that determins this .

[derekyau]

This is a most interesting topic.

I have been stopped and fined once before for driving with fog lights on in light rain in central London.

This was actually at about 12am at night, on the day that George Bush visited us and caused massive road diversions in and around central London.

It took me like 2 hours (compared with 35 min usually) to drive to work, all that time I had my fog lights on. I even stopped on 2 sepearate occasions to ask some police officers how I can get to work.

It was only when I was leaving London at night that I got stopped going by Big Ben, and fined etc.

I kicked up a huge fuss, wrote a letter, and got to see the Station top dog guy. I was saying that the law is inconsistent (would I have been stopped/fined if I was a middle aged woman etc.), and that the fog lights (in my car at the time) pointed downwards, and would not really cause dazzle (IMHO).

I have had a 4x4 vehicles behind me before, and due to there higher ride hight, even there normal driving lights cause immense dazzle, so why not make lights hight then x metres about the ground illegal

Would everyone agree that if it was a health and safety issue, that every single time you would get fined etc.? But as we know, even speeding say, people are let off - depends if that officer has had a bad day or not.

Anyway, don't want to go on much more...

D.

[Jiberjaber]

But Derek......

Thats the worst place to have front fogs on... in the rain and in London...

In London navigating is realy bad when it rains due to TfL's love of putting small signs up for pedestrians, and no signs other than road markings for drivers...

London is the worst place I have been for navigating in the rain because it obliterates the road markings due to the reflections off the road...

if you tell me you were driving around with your front fogs on... no wonder you couldn't find where you were going :)

All front fog light driving persons should be locked up IMHO! ;)

RE: Driving vrs Fog lights AFAIK...

If there is a symbol illuminated on the dash with wavy lines through it, then there fog lamps. I was on the understanding that front driving lamps were only for when the full beams were on in order to fill in the shadows caused by the road topology (a bit like driving with FULL and MAIN on at the same time.)

I dont believe many cars have this feature [driving lamps] these days.

When I was younder I fitted some self-fit front fogs (It can get just a little bit foggy in on the Moors :) ). In there there was mentioned that the relay must be fitted so that the fogs were not on when the FULL beam was on. Not sure if this is the case as the last two new cars I have had allowed the front fogs to be on whilst FULL beam and also had a symbol showing them as front fogs!

YMMV

:)