Fog lights
| Driver type: | Vain and self-obsessed |
| Mentality: | Brylcream |
| Speed: | 90mph+ |
| Vehicle: | BMW, Porsche |
| I-spy guide: | Approaching wall of piercing light |
"Culture beat: Mr Vain
I know what I want
And I want it now
I want you, cause I'm Mr. Vain"
Fog lights are the Burberry of the motorway. Once upon a time they were exclusive accessories on cars, but now every sod seems to have them, and they want any excuse to show the whole world too.
Let me get tha passive fog light driver out of the way for a start. We all forget to turn off the fogs once in a while so it's not fair to harp on about this kind of culprit. A simple flash of the lights or fogs usually solves the problem in an aimiable fashion. Of course I'm not going on about people who use their fogs in bad visibility conditions¹ either. Now let's continue on down our web page....
What we are allowed² to do is point our accusing fingers at the active fog light imbecile. I can sometimes forgive xenon equipped drivers for boiling my eye fluid because they can't really do anything about their lights (except perhaps rope a large bit of livestock on the bonnet to angle the lights down). But what really pisses me off is a plonker who chooses to switch his or her fog lights on in an effort to do nothing but look good. Hence the Mr Vain reference above.
As soon as the sun hasn't got his hat on, the offensive driver reaches for the cool button and activates
another 1000W of low down road lighting power. Except it doesn't really do anything as fog lights don't tend to work
too well in anything other than fog and heavy rain.
Here's the science bit. Their design is intended to cast a low and wide beam under the OEM headlights. Thus reducing glare from rain and fog. When it's not foggy the lights tend to fill in the darkness between the bumper and where the headlight illuminates, and around the side of the car. Last time I checked, at 70mph I don't need to see what is in the hedgerows or 3 foot in front of the bumper, the headlights do me just fine thank you.
The most effective use of fog lights I can think of³ is to annoy the bejesus out of any poor sod who is in front of the plonker. Partly because it plays havoc with your night vision, and partly because the only reason the offender can possibly be doing it is in an attempt to look good.
Stop confusing your fog lights with driving lights, damnit. Hopefully the police will stop you and give you a nice big fine.
¹ Defined as less than 100 metres visibility
² Very self righteous. But this whole site is
³ Except, of course, in fog
It's fog light time!