Will You Please Turn Those Fog Lights Off!

Yes folks, its that time of year again, when what seems like a mirriad of drivers deem it a requirement to drive around with their fog lights blazing.

This is something of a pet peeve of mine, fog light should only be on when visibility is reduced to such a level that the car in front is not visible unless its fog lights are on. The reason for this is quite simple, fog lights are extreemly bright, meaning that unless visibility is vastly reduced through fog, they are massivly distracting to other drivers. This is especially the case when you are on the motorway during rush hour in clear weather.

In clear conditions, there really is no excuse for being such an inconsiderate numpty.

Drivers who insist on having their fog light on in the wet are especially idiotic. Wet roads reflect light, so such bright lights will be cause even more glare problem for other drivers.

Granted there will be some drivers who have made a genuine mistake and either forgotton to switch off their fog lights after fog as cleared or have accidentally put them on with their lights.

The latter group have fallen foul of what I call basic design stupidity on the part of motor manufacturers, namely Peugeot. Putting the fog ligh control on the same stalk as the main lights really is asking for trouble. Fog lights are rarely required and should be a button on the dashboard so that it is a consious decision to make use of them, it should not be possible to accidentally turn them on. Along with the bashboard button, there should be a big bright dash light that reads FOGS ON so there is no excusing for not realising you have left them on. If this light is distracting, all the better, because that will encourage drivers to turn them off when they are not required.

Whatever the reason, those who make the genuine mistake of having their lights on when not required show an obvious lack of attention to the car they are driving and the conditions around them.

Whorse still are those who intentionally drive around with their fog lights on. These are spotty teenagers trying to look cool in their underpowered hallfords speciales, or arrogant self important plonkers who feel the need to bully other drivers out of their way by employing every tactic possible to make the driver in front as flustered and uncomfortable as possible.

Both type of driver is equally despicable and probably incapable of understanding the logic as to why using fog lights when its not foggy is stupid.

What was that guy thinking?

The other day I saw an act of stupidity which I still struggle to comprehend.

It was on my morning commute on the motorway, traffic was slightly more congested than is normal so I expected to see some sort of incident up ahead.

When I got to the cause of the congestion, it was a single vehicle stopped on the central reservation, hazards flashing. Due to the size of the central reservation at that point, a third of the car was still in lane three, causing traffic in that land to edge over the boundry line for lane two in order to get past.

The reason for the car to be there? Well the driver was standing behind the car heaving his guts out onto the grass.

Whatever the reasons for the sudden stop and hurl, there is lots that is wrong with this situation. The most obvious that if he was in such a poor state of health, weather self inflicted the night before or he had caught a virus, he should not have been driving. If he had to drive he should have been more careful in his planning and stayed in lane one so he could drive at a more sedate pace and be prepared for any emergency action.

The needless disruption of traffic in what should be the fastest moving lane of the motorway was what annoyed, and probably hundreds of others. Standing behind his car was also very stupid because if his car was to be hit by an approaching vehicle, he would have been placed perfectly to receive the maximum possible damage to himself.

Just for a moment I am going to assume that he had no prior warning of his impending predicament. He must have had some warning in order to stop and get out of his car. Assuming that he didn’t have time to get accross two lanes of traffic and onto the hard shoulder before the resulting splurge would have created an unpleasant valeting job, surely that would still be preferable to the carnage that he risked by stopping on the central reservation.

So, what was he thinking when he stopped? I don’t think he was thinking at all.