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Do you guys leave your fogs on?

4.6K views 36 replies 27 participants last post by  grrSTI  
#1 ·
I used to own a forester that had halogen headlights. leaving the fogs on actually help fill in some of the darkness in between the farthest point of the beams on the road (brighter so i can see).

So i figured i'd leave them on in the STI and never bothered turning them off. Today i just happened to turn them off and noticed no difference in visual quality cuz the darn HID lights do an awesome job.

At this point, are they then kinda useless? or do i leave them on so other folks can see me better at night?
 
#2 ·
fill in some of the darkness in between the farthest point of the beams on the road (brighter so i can see).
By filling the near field with light you're actually worsening your vision at distance. Do not turn on fogs if you don't have to, you know, for fog. Don't be that dick who blinds you with his fogs on a rainy night.
 
#4 ·
In clear conditions, more foreground light is not a good thing, it's a bad thing. Some foreground light is necessary so you can use your peripheral vision to see where you are relative to the road edges, the lane markings and that pothole 10 feet in front of your left wheels. But foreground light is far less safety-critical than light cast well down the road into the distance, because at any significant speed (much above 30 mph), what's in the foreground is too close for you to do much about. If you increase the foreground light, your pupils react to the bright, wide pool of light by constricting, which in turn substantially reduces your distance vision—especially since there's no increase in down-the-road distance light to go along with the increased foreground light. It's insidious, because high levels of foreground light give the illusion, the subjective impression, of comfort and security and "good lighting".
 
#5 ·
Agreed, brfatal.

When I had halogen lamps in my WRX, I sometimes couldn't see well st night b/c they were angled too far down on normal beams to be of use above 40mph. I'd have to go to high beams.

With HIDs, I have much better distance lighting without reduced vision due to badly angled projectors.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent BlueTapatalk 2
 
#8 ·
Fog lights in the United States serve only to raise the profits of dealers and car companies, I cannot think of one purpose for them.

They fool you into thinking you have better foreground, but the brighter light in the foreground will cause your pupils to shrink, thereby impairing your eyes ability to see better farther away where it is less bright.

The purpose of fog lights is to have something lower to the ground reflecting at a steeper angle so the fog is not so blinding; they would work best if you could turn your fog lights on without turning on your regular headlamps. I believe in Europe activating your fog lights can be done independently of your headlamps, and this is good: when the fog is so thick you can cut it with a knife, headlights just create glare and impair you. That's when you'd need foglights, but only foglights. You cannot turn on your fogs without activating your headlamps in the USA. For this reason I don't know if my STi has foglights because..... I wouldn't use them anyway no matter what.
 
#13 ·
Toivonen, you can change up the control wiring for the Fogs to be entirely divorced from the normal headlight controls, so activation is independent. Shouldn't be all that hard, just changing the activation switch to a different place than to the control lever where the headlight controls are.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent BlueTapatalk 2
 
#15 ·
Some give too much credit to many foglight's ability to actually light anything substantially. IMO, fogs help increase how visible I am to those around me, nothing more. I use them when it's very rainy or foggy, and at no other time.

Some fog lights are definitely a concern wrt to stray light distracting on-coming drivers, but not any Subaru foglight that I've seen.
 
#19 ·
I leave them on all the time....when it is actually foggy I dial the headlights all the way down and get decent visibilty

I absolutely HATE that I have to have the headlights on for the fogs to be on. (Haven't gone the rewiring route....yet)
 
#20 ·
There are many things that other drivers do that I consider to be stupid. Most only affect them, but there are some things that people do intentionally, despite the safety of other drivers. One of these things, is driving around at night with only the fog lights on. While some of us of the smarter breeds turn them on in addition to the headlights to increase our visibility to others, there are those who would rather look cool, at the expense of safety.

During the day - post-dawn to pre-dusk - go ahead and do whatever you'd like, but when it's pouring out, super foggy or visibility is just plain low, having MORE lights on will help me to not change lanes into you or to know where you are in case something happens and I need to make an evasive maneuver.

If I do begin to change lanes into you because I can't see your dark car on a low visibility day or night, then at the very least give me a little honk instead of letting me hit you, please.
 
#21 ·
turn your fogs off. Adjust your headlights up and then turn them down using the adjustment switch in the car so your not constantly blinding people. When you are on deserter dark roads turn them up to throw more light down the road (but dont forget you have them up cuz those suckers are bright!)

Alternative use: when someone massively cuts you off, rather than honking or flashing your brights, slowly turn up your headlights. They will find themselves with blinding ass headlights behind them without being distinctly aware that your being a dick :lol:
 
#22 ·
I think they are generally lame - especially on a Mercedes (Cadillac, Audi...) SUV which is so high that they could not function correctly at all (the driver probably does not know they are on, or how to turn them off)
 
#28 ·
i just checked my fogs last night. the amount of light from it and its angle is much lower than that of the HID's. The light bouncing off of the ground from the HID's were also brighter then the lights bouncing off of the fogs :/ so yeah, i guess they're pretty much cosmetic or visibility at this point.

i've seen some folks with... HID fogs? or LED fogs? i dunno, they were just really bright.

I run into more improperly installed HID offenders tho than foglight offenders. They either have one of their HID's angled up, or they're not using the right projector. I've met one guy who was complaining about how his driver side HID was "Skewed" - "It's lower than the passenger side," and was going to fix that, till i told him it's normal to prevent blinding oncoming traffic.
 
#29 ·
My fogs are my DRL's. See my sig for an example. I keep them on with my headlights at night too, because they are LED bulbs, they don't project much light, but they are still visible and look cool :lol:
 
#30 ·
In some instances, it does look cool. Yours looks cool.

Slight digression, not directed at you: :beer:

What bugs me, is when moron's drive around at night or during inclement weather with only their fog lights or running lights on, limiting their visibility to others. When it's dark AND pouring, to hell with whether YOU can see directly ahead; you'd better have as many lights on as possible so the rest of US can see you. I've had close calls with more than one dark-colored car in my day with nary a beep as I signal for ~ 5 seconds before slowly taking the next lane over. The only warning I get is them mashing the go pedal and moving laterally away as they speed ahead of me. :mad: Looking into the side-view and a quick look over my shoulder to check my blind spot may not be sufficient if I don't catch a glimpse of the light I'm expecting to see. :tdown: