Gloomy foggy weather and no lights

[nutsytvr]

Here we go guys. Foggy, gloomy weather arrives.

We have numptys appearing out of the gloom with no lights, or pathetic little sidelights; and at the other end of the spectrum rear fog lights that are now turned on until March.

What's wrong with these people?

[anonymous-user]

The more lights on the better I can drive, is the common belief from the 40mph everywhere brigade.

[Krikkit]

They're idiots who don't give a st about driving - it's an inconvenience.

Agreed though, really frustrating as it's not actually that hard to figure out when they're needed.

[Grunt Futtock]

Seeing a lot of front fogs left on 24/7 and quite a few total throbbers who put front fogs on but leave headlights off. To top it all off the other day I was going over to work on a country road that goes over the highest point around here and met in the fog a walker wearing a grey jacket and dark trousers, that's right a 'fog camouflage' outfit! Didn't see them until very close!

[C.A.R.]

We have these threads every year at the start of this season but they're always relevant even though repeated!

I had a hairy moment yesterday because someone was driving about in thick fog using just their DRLs - which are of course only fitted on the front of the car. Some little supermini - Pug 107 or Toyota Aygo. Absolute madness!

[J4CKO]

Or the ones that only have one light because the other one failed last winter.

I think the Police should use it as a revenue generator, say £30 fine for a bulb being out but that gets you a voucher to take it to various car spares type places and get it sorted, like a producer but you have to go to Halfords and not the local Police station.

See the same cars on the way to work, week in week out with a bulb out, I have two headlights on my push bike ffs !

[bungz]

One that does me is people using front fogs instead of dipped lights, what the hell is that about

[paulrockliffe]

They should remove sidelights, they serve absolutely no purpose and enable people to drive without their headlights on.

I have my headlights on whatever the weather, day and night and really don't see why people would do anything else.

[Byker28i]

Worse are the new cars with driving lights that turn on, but not the rear lights, so they are driving around in the dark with no rear lights!

[Wills2]

The level of foglight wombles on the A1 last night was ridiculous, yes it was a bit murky but absolutely zero need for fogs.

[codenamecueball]

paulrockliffe said:

They should remove sidelights, they serve absolutely no purpose and enable people to drive without their headlights on.

the highway code said:

Rule 249
All vehicles MUST display parking lights when parked on a road or a lay-by on a road with a speed limit greater than 30 mph (48 km/h).

[J4CKO]

Or cars that light the dash up like a Christmas tree at night that makes you think you have your headlights on, I know that the beam of light from the front and the headlight symbol on the dash should warn but for eons cars dash illumination came on with the headlights so its a subconscious signal that the lights are on, throw in auto lighting, no wonder people get confused.

[-crookedtail-]

One advantage of driving an old Swedish car, my headlights are always on, whatever the weather!

[Leins]

J4CKO said:

Or cars that light the dash up like a Christmas tree at night that makes you think you have your headlights on, I know that the beam of light from the front and the headlight symbol on the dash should warn but for eons cars dash illumination came on with the headlights so its a subconscious signal that the lights are on, throw in auto lighting, no wonder people get confused.

Agreed, a stupid development from manufacturers. I remember one of the early Ibiza Cupras having this feature nearly 20 years ago and wondering on earth they did it

[SuperchargedVR6]

codenamecueball said:

paulrockliffe said:

They should remove sidelights, they serve absolutely no purpose and enable people to drive without their headlights on.

the highway code said:

Rule 249
All vehicles MUST display parking lights when parked on a road or a lay-by on a road with a speed limit greater than 30 mph (48 km/h).

Who actually does that? Some cars also have left or right parking lights from the indicator stalk when the car is off. Again, I've not seen one person use that function, EVER!

And are parking lights not different to 'sidelights'?

[Eth2312]

C.A.R. said:

We have these threads every year at the start of this season but they're always relevant even though repeated!

I had a hairy moment yesterday because someone was driving about in thick fog using just their DRLs - which are of course only fitted on the front of the car. Some little supermini - Pug 107 or Toyota Aygo. Absolute madness!

Sorry to admit this but I realised I was doing this the other day. I have automatic lights and assumed they would be on, but for some reason in the gloomy foggy weather the light sensor didn't detect this and didn't turn my main lights on, so I just had my DRL's on. Only realised after about the 5th person flashed me as I thought something was a drift...doh!

[Humpy D]

Byker28i said:

Worse are the new cars with driving lights that turn on, but not the rear lights, so they are driving around in the dark with no rear lights!

A pet hate of mine. See loads of people driving with their lovely, bright DRLs but no rear lights. I suspect it is simple ignorance; people probably don't know that the rear lights aren't on. Why, when they introduced the DRL law it didn't extend to rear lights too is beyond me.

I also blame automatic headlights for people not driving with any lights in gloomy weather. I suspect a lot of automatic headlights don't recognise gloomy/foggy weather and people don't have the common sense to turn them on manually.

[JeffreyLebowski]

I'd put a good proportion of it down to modern cars having auto lights, and the ambient light not being low enough to activate them. Joe Public who doesn't pay attention to their driving standards, will just assume their lights will turn on if it was necessary. It's a f*cking stupid piece of unnecessary technology which causes more issues than it'll ever solve.

Edit: Just read Eth2312's response above - case closed!

[funkyrobot]

bungz said:

One that does me is people using front fogs instead of dipped lights, what the hell is that about

Cool, innit.

I'm seeing more and more cars being driven by morons doing that. Sidelight and foglight combo. Great!

[funkyrobot]

JeffreyLebowski said:

I'd put a good proportion of it down to modern cars having auto lights, and the ambient light not being low enough to activate them. Joe Public who doesn't pay attention to their driving standards, will just assume their lights will turn on if it was necessary. It's a f*cking stupid piece of unnecessary technology which causes more issues than it'll ever solve.

Edit: Just read Eth2312's response above - case closed!

First thing I did when I got my last car was switch the lights back to manual control.

It wasn't just things like fog where they didn't work. They would turn on when going under a bridge sometimes, then turn off. They also did this when going into a petrol station. As they were xenons too, I didn't like the way they were going on and off so quick.

As the above has pointed out, they are pretty useless when the conditions are anything but dark/dusk.