Fog Lights - The Light in the Fog
Posted by admin - 19/05/08 at 03:05:49 pm
Often found among cars replete with customization and accessories, commonly used fog lamps belie their true purpose. Fog lamp assemblies are neither required by law, nor fitted by most car manufactures as stock items. Rather they are fitted by car enthusiasts, and those extra precautious about driving.
Fog lamps certainly add to aesthetics. Paired with headlamps, fog lamps give a coarser impression to the car. Car owners that have them installed are seen to be more passionate about driving and safety, whatever the conditions.
Functionally, good fog lights are those that provide a sharp horizontal cutoff line at low visibility conditions. This means they brightly illuminate below a marker line while not extending its light above it. Such settings insure a pure contrast, so that road surface can be viewed without adding to the glare that may reduce distant vision. To insure this, fog lamps should be properly mounted, and the angle at which they throw light carefully selected.
However, most fog lamps fail to achieve this, and hence are useless at best. Improperly placed fog lamps, or their inappropriate use, can be dangerous both for the car driver and the approaching cars, making collisions more likely. If fog lamps do not produce a sharp cutoff line, and instead reflect fog particles, your distant visibility can be seriously impaired. Also, when excessive light is reflected from road surface close by, you can become less sensitive to light coming from distant source, compounding your myopic vision. This factor becomes more pronounced at higher speeds, since your ability to react to the closer source of light is reduced.
On the other hand, using correctly placed fog lamps in conditions that do not merit their use can add tremendously to glare for the other drivers. Since they are set lower than headlamps, they do not add to glare for you. Instead, they get reflected on the other side, temporarily blinding any approaching driver.
Fog lights should not be thought to be mere accessory or add on to headlights in poor visibility conditions. The perils they may introduce on the road merits very careful use. If you have installed fog lamp assembly as accessory device, it is better not to use them. Often, these cosmetic fog lamps fall short of standards set out by law, and so can even earn you a ticket. If you do have a genuine reason to use your fog lights, use them to a minimal, and while doing so, drive under thirty miles. Finally, do not use them until visibility actually turns really low.