Regarding people who don't use their car headlights properly?

[NeonDoll]

This is real bug bear of mine!

For the past few weeks I've been nearly blinded driving to work by people using fog lights when there is no bloody fog and visibility is perfect! This morning there was a thick fog, so thick in fact that you could barely see your hand in front of your face and yet the amount of cars that were either driving without their fog lights on, or had their lights on main beam causing a glare was staggering!

How the hell did these idiots even manage to pass their theory driving tests? It's dangerous FFS. What the hell is wrong with them?

People using fog lights in the absence of fog are 1. idiots who think it looks cool 2. those having earlier driven through fog and forgot to shut them off. 3. those who have accidentally turned them on when fiddling with high beams/etc. So I tend to go with "genuine mistake" unless the car is a pimped out Corsa driven by a 20 year old

Having fog lights during foggy conditions isn't, I think, a legal requirement, especially if there is streetlighting.

Having main beams on in foggy conditions is an entirely different thing. Stupid stupid people.

I knew it was going to be fog lights - drives me crazy.

YANBU at all.

And why do people put fog lights on when it's raining???
It's a fog light - not a rain light.

I kept seeing people with fog lights on and thought they looked kinda cool. I liked the double set of lights. Like a tiny lorry.

So one night I decided to emulate them, and turned my fog lights on so I could drive home looking epic! Just 200 brightly lit yards later, I was stopped by the Police and told to turn them off.

So now when I see double-lit cars, I think, "Wah! You get away with it and I didn't!"

I always out my rear fogs on when it's chucking it down so much that visibility is reduced.

Anything that stops some twat ploughing in to the back of me is worth it IMO.

It visibility is more than 100 meters (fog or rain) and you have fog lights on you can be stopped and fined £60.

I drive over moors everyday and its regularly foggy, not enough to warrant fog lights but lots of people have them on, the glare drives me nuts! If you can see the car in front of you, you don't need fog lights on.

How do you know if you can see the car in front of you?

You mean you can see the actual car, not just two red lights?

Half the world seems to drive around with their front fogs on nowadays, I can't say I've ever noticed it causing me a problem.

Fog lights in broad daylight piss me off no end. However they seem to be a fashion accessory these days, ive lost count the amount of police cars ive seen cruising around with their fogs on. And those who think that fog lights make up for only having one headlight are a special kind of stupid.

Use common sense. If you can see the car in front of you clearly then you don't need lights. If you can't and you think visibility is less than 100 meters put them on!

Glare affects some people more than others, especially when you are stuck behind the same car for miles.

YANBU. Lots of people seem to be terrified of driving in the dark and as a consequence manage to make it more difficult to everybody else.

Can we also talk about people who can't use indicators properly?

Indicate THEN break ffs.

Then there are the ones who don't indicate at all.

Really thick question here (shamefully from a driver if 20 years +!).

My knowledge of lights 'options' is this:
Side lights/low beam (for poor light/getting dark etc)
Full headlights (normal nighttime driving)
Full beam (for country roads if no other traffic etc, or to 'flash' to warn other road user of your existence. Except we all use them to flag people on or thank them!)
Fog lights (which just give brighter/additional red light at back if car)

So question is-has there always been a difference in fog lighting at the front all this time and I've never known?

Hmm, I always thought the first fog light option was the back, then the second was the front, but on our current car something seems to happen at the front when I turn the switch to the first position?

Fog lights are one of the things there is actual legislation for. If you have fog lights on and visibility isn't reduced to under 100m, you're breaking the law. It doesn't look 'cool' at all as my friend claims as she drives round with them on all the bloody time.

But nobody knows how to use lights anymore. Fog lights when it isn't foggy, side lights which achieve fuck all when it's dark, riding the brake when stopped in traffic which dazzles the person behind you, full beam when following another car, optional indicators etc.

Fog lights on at the back when it isn't foggy simply mask brake lights - really annoying when raining and your depth perception is screwed anyway.

I have to admit I flip the rear foggies on to confuzzle tailgaters on country lanes... makes them think I am breaking, occasionally makes them stay a bit further back!

I don't have front fog lights btw so am not even afforded the opportunity to use them properly.

I don't like silly daytime running lights either. Bright blue fairy bloody lights.

I didn't think that side lights were ever for driving. It's either dark enough to need full headlights or it isn't.

But now I'm not sure what side lights only would be for? Some sort of relic of times when you had to leave them on all night if parked on the road?

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! Those pretty little lights that sit around the main light?

I fucking hate them! I drive a low car and they all look like full beam to me. Sodding stupid EU law that allows them, find me the bastard who proposed them as a fix to a non existant problem and I'll throttle him!

It's also taken me a year on my new car to find where the rear fog lights are and that was by accident. Stupid design on a Ford.

Yes, even if it is foggy, once someone is driving safely behind you (and you can see their headlights) and all is well, turn the fucking fog light off. If you can see them, they can see you. It's like full beam backwards. Cocks.

Side lights are parking lights still.

Years ago I had an older female colleague and we had to go on a road trip - visiting various clients all over Wales and the border areas of England. She was driving in her own car.

In the course of one day we drove from the area where we lived in North West Wales into Liverpool, down to Stratford, Gloucester, Bath, Bristol, back into South Wales over the Severn bridge and then back up North to where we came from. I was in my 20s and she was then in her late 40s, and a very opinionated know-it-all woman with quite a high position in the company, and I was very much the junior colleague.

I know she had sight problems and had mentioned on more than one occasion that she was blind in one eye. I don't know if she was fully or partially blind in that eye or what, but she did wear very thick lensed glasses, although her sight (or lack of it) didn't seem to affect her at work or in everyday life.

So off we went, made all the various visits and as we got back into Wales it started to get dark. The latter twisty twiny Wales up mountains down valleys part of the journey was a total nightmare on account of her driving with dipped beam all the time along unlit, pitch black, rural and often precarious roads, and then when a car appeared in the opposite direction she would hit the full beam, totally blinding the oncoming driver who in some instances (if they weren't too stunned to react) would flash and beep furiously with her muttering 'arsehole' or 'fuck off' or similar.

I was astounded and thought she'd realise what she was doing wrong, but she didn't. I tried to tell her that she was using her lights the wrong way round and that she should be driving on full beam and dipping when she saw another car, but she wasn't having any of it. She seemed completely unable to grasp what I was saying and what she was doing - I don't know if it was deliberate, unintentional or what.

I was a nervous bloody wreck by the time we got back and never, ever got in a car with her again.

Do front fog lights serve any purpose? I've never had a car where they've made any noticeable difference to what I could see in front of me, given I had dipped main beams on as well.

I googled this and Wikipedia says that they are sometimes better than dipped beams (i.e. as an alternative) because of where they illuminate, and because they reflect less off fog in front of you. It notes though that the legality of using them without dipped beams varies from place to place.

In most countries, weather conditions rarely necessitate the use of fog lamps, and there is no legal requirement for them, so their primary purpose is frequently cosmetic.

I must admit I have had my current car since last June and I don't know how the fog lights work. I guess I ought to find out, but I just haven't needed them.

Like Nomama, I am dubious about cars with the rows of smaller lights around each headlamp. They are just so fecking bright they can be disorientating when you are the oncoming driver.

Is it just me or are car headlights getting brighter and brighter these days? Even on dip I find the glare from many of them dazzling. Bright is great if you are driving that particular car, but no fun if you are oncoming in the opposite direction.

Don't get me started on people who seem to refuse to dip their lights.