It’s foggy out there, yet lots of people driving around with either no lights at all or only daylight running lights - which of course don’t switch on the rear lights. Use some common folks, doesn’t take a second to switch your lights on properly. 
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Lots of people no longer switch them on. I was wondering if the changed the law and I missed it?
But please turn off your rear fog lights unless it’s pea-soup fog.
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I dont drive a car but as a pedestrian I always have my torch on in the fog.
It’s due to reliance on automatic headlights that come on at dusk and in tunnels. Drivers have forgotten that they need more than their daylight driving lights in fog…
At least they don’t forget to turn them on when it’s actually dark. I think we tend to forget, but back in the day it was quite common to flash someone who was driving with no lights, which hardly ever happens now.
Lights on in the fog is no worse than it used to be back then, with the bonus that on many cars the automatic position on the light switch means that the front and rear foglights can’t be used without a manual intervention, so we get a lot less of the blinding rear lights that used to be so common when people ‘forgot’ to turn them off in town or busy traffic.
It’s automatic in most modern cars.
Define “modern” though. Ours just turned 4 and although it does have an automatic lights setting on it, you have to select that option manually first.
Yes, but you just leave it on that setting - unless there’s fog!
Many of the “auto” settings are quite crap and indeed won’t switch on rear lights unless it get dark. Which is a problem in foggy weather. I have both cars on “lights on” permanently this time of year.
Ahhhh the troubles with “new” cars.
I wish mine would turn the lights off automatically when I turn the engine off. But on the other hand I only forgot about that once - the lesson lasts.
This.
Really, if you can see other cars headlights in your rear view mirror you do not need rear fog lights. If you can see them they can see you. Rocket Science 101.
That is complete rubbish - a car’s headlamps are much, much brighter than tail lamps.
If you can see their headlamps, it doesn’t mean they can see you - do you understand that a fog lamp is much brighter than a tail lamp for this reason?
It’s hardly rocket science.
This and there is another factor. Headlights actually decrease your vision outside of the light beam as your eyes adjust to the brightest light. This is a pain on a bicycle as I need the light so that others can see me but the front light actually diminishes my useful vision.