In those great cartoons out of the 1930s, cars smiled out at you as they toodled along the road, swinging back and forth in their lane. The "face" of the car was marked by the headlights serving as the eyes. One set of eyes, one set of lights.
Unfortunately, actual cars have two sets of lights, and therein lies the rub. There are the "normal" headlights, with two settings (normal and bright). And then, for reasons which no longer make sense, there are these things called "fog lights", which are low-level lights with much smaller strength. By virtue of the name "fog lights", most drivers would assume that they are what you are supposed to use when driving in fog.
Until, of course, they kill you.
Some time ago, I was driving on a long, gradual downgrade on a four-lane divided highway, meaning that two adjacent lanes were going in the same direction. Traffic was at speed, in this case about 60, and I was in the right lane. It was in the twilight hours, right after sunset. At some point, I needed to move into the left (fast) lane, and looked back up the left lane to see if I was clear to move over. What I saw was a large 18-wheeler with his normal headlights on. The headlights were bright (as they should be), and showed the truck to be far enough behind me that I should be able to change lanes in front of him pretty easily.
I signaled my lane change and started to move, whereupon I realized that in front of the truck was a car with only its fog lights on. I was lucky -- as were my passengers -- not to have been killed that day. The car with the fog lights was completely obscured by the fact that the truck behind it had its full headlights on, showing above the car because of the downgrade. Of course, if the car had had its headlights on, it would have been readily visible and I would not have tried the lane change. But it didn't.
So why, we ask, would a driver in twilight, or at any time, for that matter, have fog lights on? Lights on a car do two things (duh) -- they help you see and let you be seen. Fog lights do neither; they're impotent as far as lighting up your path and, as I noted, not only do they not really help you be seen, they can actually obscure you relative to headlights.
If there is really no reason to have them, and they are obviously dangerous, then:
(1) Why aren't driver ed classes and driving schools telling students never to use fog lights under any circumstances?
(2) Why is their use not being made illegal by all 50 states, DC and every Territory?
(3) Why are car manufacturers continuing to put them on cars?
(4) Why, in fact, are not Daytime Running Lights (DRLs) not simply be mandated on all cars, to take the choice out of the hands of the driver?
Headlights should be on all the time. There is really only one tolerable function of fog lights -- they can be wired in to go on as an emergency accessory when the headlight on that side burns out -- as a minimal aid to the other drivers to give them an idea where you are, until you can go get your headlight fixed.
Can I possibly be the only one who thinks this?
Copyright 2017, 2014 by Robert Sutton