Fog lights on their own. Are not that much of a problem. Of course NOBODY drives with only their fogs lights. Why, because its illegal number one, and they cant see very well, Or so they think :!:
Our Lights on our cars are designed for a specific purpose and shine on the road for that reason. If you look at our Focus ST's you will see that the one lamp (think its the right) Does not in fact shine as far as the left. This is because the Focus' front lights actually move left or right depending on speed and the direction you are moving the steering wheel at that time. Now since we drive on the left, when driving towards on coming traffic going around a bend, turning our lights like this will blind somebody coming from the opposite direction.
This is the reason why the one light shines further than the other. The left Light will turn and shine further down the side of the road where there is NOBODY and not cause discomfort for other drivers.
Now fog lights are a similar situation. If you take two torches and hold them next to each other you in effect double the intensity of the light. It is really only an illusion, but it is enough to cause your pupils to become smaller. Remove this light suddenly and it takes your eyes a while to adjust, during which time, You could be "blinded" for a while.
Most headlamps are designed to be just below this peak of irritation. However when you add the fog lights to the situation, your normal headlamps are now a bright irritation. To make things worse, because they do shine lower down, and actually to the sides, as you drive past somebody like this, its like turning our lights on directly into their face as they pass by. Which causes your pupil to change size and blinds you. Depending on person to person, this can be rectified instantly or take about 3 sec’s four our eyes to re-adjust. The rods on the sides of your eyes are also more sensitive to light in darkness. So this suddenly bright light from the side is not a nice thing to do to other drivers.(for interest, it takes the average human 45 min for their eyes to adjust to a situation, especially in darkness. 1 second of bright light.. puts you back to 45 min)
Azbo…For my friend I mentioned.. Those 4 seconds where just long enough for him to swerve, lose control and hit another car.
Here is a quote from another website which also explains why it is fact STUPID to use fog lights when there is no Fog and how you are actually fooling yourself. (Search Google for Fog Lamp Law btw for many many more)
The fog lamps' job is to show you the edges of the road, the lane markings, and the immediate foreground. When used in combination with the headlamps, good fog lamps weight the overall beam pattern towards the foreground so that even though there may be a relatively high level of upward stray light from the headlamps causing glare back from the fog or falling snow, there will be more foreground light than usual without a corresponding increase in upward stray light, giving back some of the vision you lose to precipitation.
When used without headlamps in conditions of extremely poor visibility due to snow, fog or smoke, good fog lamps light the foreground and the road edges only, so you can see your way safely at reduced speeds.
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".
