Otto Maddox wrote: Studies have shown that in North America more people inappropriately use their fog lamps in dry weather than use them properly in poor weather.

Based on my experiences this morning, there is a decent chance people think fog lights are, in fact, an invitation to pull out in front of someone during poor road conditions and limited visibility.

Ehhh.... if my low beams are on, my "fog" lights pretty much are too. But if you look at the little pic of my car in the avatar at left it's obvious that "fog" lights on the Stang are fairly misnamed. they are as large and at the same height as the main lights. At night the amount of additional illumination from the "fog" lights is significant. Since I didn't opt for the HID option, they are a valuable aid to my nighttime navigation and give me a much better field of view. I do occaisionally get people who flash their brights at me thinking I have on my high beams, but I'd bet that's simply because they see 4 headlights instead of 2. I've passed many mustangs with the fogs on, and any car with an HID is more annoying for glare. Heck, the wife's Cooper is blinding comparatively.

Keith - the idea of polarizing the headlights and the windows at angle s is pretty dam cool, but when light reflects off a surface (like a wet road) it is polarized in a different way. I wonder how that would affect the effectiveness? We should test that....

ditchdigger wrote: 3. Useless above speeds of 30mph or so. 4. False sense of security caused by excessive light where the driver doesn't actually need it.

How is #3 a con? It may not be a PRO, but being useless doesn't make something bad. It seems like much of your argument is centered around this concept.

4 I disagree with. My fog-lights on every car I have owned have been worthless as fog lights (basically treat them as redundant marker lights). How in the hell does that create a false sense of security? Hell, on most of the cars you could barely even tell they were on except by looking at the indicator on the dash.

ditchdigger wrote: 3. enables the dash lights to function in a Saturn

I don't get this comment. I've owned Saturns with fog lights as well as a Miata, Z32, Subaru, and driven about a gazillion other cars with them, and on ALL of them, the fog lights can only come on with the park/run lights or low beams (+ park/run lights). When you turn these on, it also illuminates the instrument cluster. I've never owned a car where you could turn the cluster lights on independently of any driving lights except the S2000 - which is a different story as it is a digital cluster.

Formatting is all messed up.

The fog lights on my Forester don't seem to do anything at all, even in the fog.

joey48442 wrote:

N Sperlo wrote:

joey48442 wrote: I always wonder about motorcycles that leave the highbeams on. This would scare my if I were a rider, as now, the 3000 pound missile that is traveling towards me is now being driven by a blinded driver. Not ideal I wouldn't think. Joey

Its common for them around here to have a flasher on then to "make then more noticeable." hopefully BondoandDuctape doesn't get a hold of one of those.

Oh man, those are almost hypnotic. I feel myself being pulled toward the light. I think they are dangerous. Joey

Studies show drunks veer towards lights. It was determined to be the cause of the death of a police officer in my area. (Wasn't released to the media.) Anyway, the police were trained to shut off lights when a car is coming down the separated highway at them.

Joey, maybe you should drink less.

In the morning it's not dark enough to require headlights so I throw on my parking lights and yellow fogs just to make my Miata easier to see. People seem to overlook my car when I don't have the fogs on, despite it being bright red with a white hardtop.

Then again my fogs are ACTUAL fog lights and are appropriately aimed.

Aw, man! Who broke the internet?