I’ve never heard anyone say a good word about foglights – “doesn’t help me see at all” is what everybody told me. Mine seemed no better when I tested them in the first heavy fog – I stopped behind a car so I just barely see it with my normal lights on, and then backed away til I couldn’t (no more than a foot or 2) and switched on the fogs. I still couldn’t see the car ahead, so I wrote the lights off as useless.
But I tried them again in a heavy fog a couple of weeks ago, and they were VERY helpful. They must be aimed pretty sharply to the right, and they did a fine job of illuminating the white line on the right side of the road. They didn’t help me at all seeing farther into the mist, but I could drive a lot more confidently because I could see the road edge better.
Is this what they’re actually designed for? If so, the word hasn’t gotten out well.
The word out about fog lights was that they were supposed to be directed lower than the headlights so that the resulting beam would reflect off the road UNDER the fog and then up and away. Giving yourself a few more feet of visibility but not drastically more.
Helping you see the edge of the road is probably a result of the lights being aimed more downward than the headlights. The resulting beam gets splashed outward to the sides of the road as a result.
Speaking as a Milwaukeean,
are we going to get ANY snow this year?
As a child I read a book written by Bob Hope. He was talking about being driven around London in a Rolls Royce with fog lights. His take on fog lights
As whuckfistle said, they should be aimed down to go below the fog to give you an extra few feet of visibility. Most cars I see being driven with the fogs on, they are aimed too high to be of service.
Don’t forget that car lights are there not only to see others, but also so that you can be seen by others. Driving at night, you can see the lights on other cars well before you can see the cars themselves