It’s totally valid to have fog lights for use in fog because they actually do make a massive difference. I am also a fan of how they look they just fill in the bumper nicely. But using them when it isn’t foggy is pretty stupid. I personally have fog lights but barely ever use them other than when I’m on a back road late at night and just want all the visibility possible.
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Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 21 hours agoLol, that all sounds correct unfortunately.
The cars with headlights that I find glaring are usually/more often low-beams.
Or fog lamps bcs “iT mAKeS It lOoK sPorTIeR”.
Interestingly I can code my DRLs (front and back - diffident markets have different rules regarding what DRLs are & when are needed) to different levels & at default they are at 20 or 30% (the 100% being when used with regular headlights on, probably).
I tried it bcs I was curious, but was def distracting & I reset them immediately (I didn’t even do both sides, just the right one to have a comparison).
Stez827@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 18 hours ago
Ofc lights have a legitimate purpose.
They are absolutely paramount to read safety (fuck cars tho for that safety even being in question - even tho I like cars, I want trains too or at least cars on trains).I can’t imagine having a car with incandescent lights anymore (like with lots of other tech - like tires).
I use fog lights (first back, then front) if I literally can’t see taillights in front of me at like a bit over 50(-ish)m & reduced speed.
I love high beams too, it gives me so much better side-of-the-road awareness (animals), but I also have the finger on the (adaptive) button all the time in case the camera fails & starts closing the gap on a car (no, I don’t have an IR camera :/).
It’s also stupid how like 20+ year old cars have adaptive high beams (where they don’t shine in other cars), automatic leveling of headlights, and even IR cameras (with ppl & animal spotting & even highlighting), etc - and the auto industry just kept it as an expensive add-on for so many years (things changed slowly, but it’s still not standard).
At least the lawmakers mandated auto-emergency-braking on new cars (again after 20 years).
Oh, another example, the French had adaptive (non- high beam) headlights to see around the corner in 1967, yet this is still not mandated.
Image
ImageModern are ofc better - and perhaps fill the purpose you mention you use fog lights for.
ImageRailing5132@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
I have the factory fog lamps (they’re pretty low) on whenever the low beams are on. I have abysmal night vision and live in a rural area.
Stez827@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
They are a separate switch for me but I drive a car from the 80s so idk maybe I’m the weird one
JordanZ@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Not the person you responded to but it’s not possible for my car to turn on just the fog lights. So while they have their own switch you can just leave it ‘on’ and then they go on/off with the normal headlights.
JordanZ@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I’m aware other countries have rear DRLs cause some of my friends went out of their way to buy the parts for their cars cause they like the look. Sadly in the US…no such requirement. I see at least one car an evening running nothing but DRLs. I blame the invention of the LCD dash. They’re handy but one of my cars is old and doesn’t have one. You know what I see at night with the lights off…nothing. The entire dash is pitch black. Kind of a big hint your lights are off.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 5 hours ago
Lol, what a journey!
It’s not that you can’t see the road that tells you your lights are off, it’s the dashboard.
But that is def how people’s brainholes work actually.
Also, there are cars that don’t have automatic headlights and have an (I assume on of those fully) LCD dashboards?
Around my parts the former predates the latter (in high end cars, like the S-class not by a whole bunch, and there are those 70s cars with monochromatic LCDs, but still).
JordanZ@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
More and more cars are coming with partial or full lcd gauge clusters. Automatic headlights are still hit or miss but becoming more common, especially on higher end trims. Probably something to do with economy of scale and ease of programming. Just cheaper to slap an lcd in all the cars and use the same software package for settings. As the trim levels go up you generally just get bigger screens.
The issue with auto headlights is they can still be put in some mode that isn’t auto. It’s actually really common if you ever take it into a shop. They turn them off so they aren’t just blinding everybody inside and saving the battery. Good mechanics will turn them back to the original setting but more often than not they just leave them off.