Morning all,

Seems the annoying, dangerous, and illegal use of prat lights is on the rise. Must have seen upwards of 200 pillocks with them on (front and rear) last night returning from up north. A lot of rain, but that makes then more dangerous, not safer!
Pretty sure it's the lemming mentality (and of course, those people who think it's cool) of the average motorist nowadays, but would be interesting to know how many folks on here use them when they shouldn't, and why?

What's he banging on about, you may wonder? When used only when they should be, these are known as fog lights. The clue is in the name!

cheers You can't see the eyes of the demon until him come callin'

Fog lights, or DRL's?

Click image to enlarge

Fog lights. DRL's are permanently on? You can't see the eyes of the demon until him come callin'

Yes, but some cars use the fog lights as DRL's...

Well they shouldn't- it's not only annoying, it's illegal... You can't see the eyes of the demon until him come callin'

What I think is worse is people who drive cars that only have front DRL's and in heavy rain of fog don't switch on their Headlights because they think the DRLs are enough, they forget that the vast majority of cars don't have day light running tail lights. Over on BabyRR we badgered Land Rover to enable Daylight Running Tail lights on Evoque in all markets (there are markets where tailights stay on all the time) and they did it for MY13 through to MY15 but seem to have abandoned it. My 2015 RRS2 has the tail lights on permanently. We had people of that forum asking how would they know if their headlights/ taiallights were on as they have automatic on lights........... duh there is a green light in the instrument cluster that comes on, if it isn't on you have no lights on, just DRLs. Another issue is with the auto-on system in fog - it is often not sensitive enough to sense fog as it can be quite bright in fog banks, but also you leave the fog bank and the lights switch off automatically then you drive into another area of fog and forget that your lights have not switched on. My sister's Honda failed it's MOT last year because of an electrical glitch that failed top set her rear fog light to the default off setting when the engine was stopped and the key removed from the car, when she restarted the fog l;ugh the came back on when it should have stayed off until she switched it back on - I didn't know that was an MOT failure item........... 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Disco_Mikey wrote:

Yes, but some cars use the fog lights as DRL's...

Indeed, and front fog (prat) light bulbs are 55W, the same as dip/main beam lamps. Far too bright to be used as a bloody fashion accessory!
DRL's are more in the range of 5-20W as far as I know?

PS I did a quick test while driving with a mate of mine one night- switched on front prat lights to see how it would affect overall visibility. Turns out, it's worse as the road directly in front of the car was more brightly lit than the road 20m or so ahead. Reduced visibility in the distance compared to just using dipped headlights. So there! You can't see the eyes of the demon until him come callin'

My current bug bear is people that stop a full cars length from the white line at traffic lights. It is absolute pure idiocy.

Can't say I've noticed that, most idiots I see are either a car's length over the white line, or running the red lights completely! You can't see the eyes of the demon until him come callin'

Must be a London thing

LJRH wrote:

My current bug bear is people that stop a full cars length from the white line at traffic lights. It is absolute pure idiocy.