fog lights

[jim GM4DHJ ...]

do fog lights and especially rear fog lights require a warning light that they are on ?

[jim GM4DHJ ...]

...and is it an MOT failure if you don't have one ? ...

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Yes and yes.

[williamwright]

On 26/03/2021 16:09, Harry Bloomfield wrote: > jim GM4DHJ ... used his keyboard to write : >> On 26/03/2021 13:11, jim GM4DHJ ... wrote: >>> do fog lights and especially rear fog lights require a warning light >>> that they are on ? >>

Bill

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

thought that but couldn't find it....thanks

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

thanks but is was fogs I was asking about....car doesn't have reversing lights

[alan_m]

If factory fitted (and possibly self fitted) they must be working for a MOT. There may be only one rear fog light (drivers side) although on some cars there may be just a reflector on the passenger side without a light.

Both my factory fitted fog lights have front and rear dashboard indications that they are on.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Why don't they make fog lamps out of rubber? All too often a prang on the front breaks the fog lamps and pushes the body of the light into the edge of the bonnet or the bit above the bumper at the back as they are usually fixed to a tube around which they can rotate. Unless in the last years this practice has changed of course as I don't see them these days. Brian

[Chris J Dixon]

How easy is it to remember which symbol is for front and which is the rear?

Chris

[alan_m]

Although different colour indicators I don't use my fog lights enough to know/remember which indicator is for front or rear. The switches for both lights are also quite low down towards the footwell and only have the same symbols as the indicators.

Common sense suggests that the top switch is front and the bottom switch is rear and the left facing indicator is the front fog and the right facing the rear.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't use my fog lights in the rain nor do I leave them on when there is 100s of metres of visibility :(

[nightjar]

They have done since at least the 1961 lighting regulations, possibly earlier.

[Dave Plowman (News]

It's a legal requirement in some countries that there is only one rear fog. Presumably to avoid confusion with brake lights.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Mine shows the beam pointing down for front fogs and straight ahead for the rears. Which makes some kind of sense.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Still doesn't stop plenty idiots leaving them on. ;-)

[NY]

I wondered if that was the case, given that a lot of recent cars have only one fog light. My previous cars had two white lights in the clusters for reversing and two red lights for fog, but there was no bulb in the nearside fog light - so I added one, on the grounds that (IMHO) *all* front and rear lights should be in pairs, to define the car's width. My current car has only one white light on the nearside (which is a bugger when reversing at night and the offside of the road behind is not lit) and only one red light on the offside. I tend to put my fog light on when reversing at night, so both sides of the car (eg walls/hedges that I'm reversing between) are lit up in either white or red.

I think the "some countries" are making a very serious safety error in mandating only one foglight. I find in fog that it is essential that I can see both rear lights (and fog lights do the same job in fog as tail lights in clear conditions, in defining the width of the car when seen from a distance) and so can judge (from the apparent spacing) how far away the car is when all I can see of it are its fog light(s).

My ideal grouping of rear lights would be:

- indicator

- side

- fog

- reflector

- brake

in that order (or the opposite) so the indicator is some distance from the brake and fog lights, and so the fog and brake lights are separated and therefore can be distinguished (I always look for the third high-level brake light if I'm unsure whether it's fog or brake). I'd group side and fog, except that this would place the bright fog light right next to the indicator, making it hard to see the indicator if the car has its foglights (or brake lights) on.

Those considerations *far* outweigh any aesthetic rules about how "pretty" the clusters look.

VW are terrible: the rear indicator is a ring around the side/brake light, so it's almost invisible if the brake lights are on.

Bring back nice simple clusters, maybe even separate housings on the rear/front body, and definitely don't put the front indicators anywhere near the headlights! Lights are meant to be clearly visible in all conditions, not to look pretty!

[NY]

I tend to look at the sidelight (and/or high beam headlight) symbol. The one for the front fog lights will be facing the same way, and the one for the rear fog lights will be facing the opposite way. Often the reminder-light for front fog will be green like the side light, and the rear fog will be amber.

[NY]

Funny story. I got a new car (VW Golf Mark II) which had the fog light switch on a panel on the dashboard alongside the heated rear window and something else. I was driving in fog and I was religiously turning the rear fog light switch on when I couldn't see headlights behind me, and off again when I saw headlights (if I could see his headlights, he was close enough to be dazzled by my fog lights). I thought I was being really good. When I got home, I realised I'd been turning the heated rear window on and off, and my fog lights had either been permanently off or permanently on (I forget which). I felt a real plonker. Never made that mistake again.

My recent cars have had an interlock with the side lights control on the indicator stalk, so if the fogs are turned on when I turn off the sidelights at the end of a journey, the fogs are automatically reset to off for when I next turn the side lights on. Easy to do this either electronically, or by a peg between the rotating light switch and the rotating collar for the fogs which is next to it.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

and my two are side by side :-)

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

NY submitted this idea :

+1

[NY]

What I don't understand is why the Construction and Use regulations haven't been given powers to say to car manufacturers "this is not adequate for purpose - putting indicators right next to headlights or brakelights makes them considerably less visible". But they are more concerned with the exact relation with respect to bumpers and ground, than with proximity between one light and another.

It was only fairly recently that we in the UK allowed a series of sequential lights for indicators, which had been done on some American cars but had to be changed to a simple on/off light if the car was imported into the UK. Now that they are allowed again, I've seen some cars with them, and once you've got over the novelty, they are very effective in showing which way a car is indicating.

At least we have unique colours for our indicators, as opposed to flashing side lights or brake lights as some US cars have. I've seen some older cars (probably 1950s or before) which had this, but it seems to have been outlawed here around 1960 (am I correct with that approximate date?).