I personally find them great at slow speeds turning into dark roads/driveways or even on to my drive, as the cornering Xenons only work from about 10-14mph upwards. (can't remember exact speed as 300 miles from manual...)

I have never in nearly 9000 miles and 6 months had one problem with an idiot thinking I was flashing them.....

Maybe around London people are more used to seeing them as there does seem to be a lot of new cars around with them....

I ride a motorcycle as well and can assure you that the idiots who assume it is safe to turn across your path are not interpreting your cornering fogs as a signal that it is safe to cut across you. They are just careless and unthinking half wits who are as likely to drive with a phone to their ear or while holding and involved face to face conversation with their equally bovine passengers.

Don't credit them with a half excuse or accept any responsibility for their awful driving.

I find the cornering fogs mildly useful turning in to unlit gateways or openings or in dimly lit parking garages. The cornering xenons are surprisingly good on cross country a and b roads.

Try them for a period. Drive on the basis that a proportion of your fellow road users are homicidal imbeciles-it is the only way to survive on a bike.

On two occasions the people involved actually let me know verbally very aggressively that they had pulled out because they had seen the lighs come on and had assumed that I had flashed them.

Still not good driving put actual proof that the lights casued the issue.

It's only a matter of tiem before someone has an accident directly attributed to these lights. If it's our car that's involved then there may be legal issues as my request to have the lights switched off on safety grounds is logged with the dealer.

It's really to do with where these 'fog lights' are. They are quite high up on the Yeti, whereas most foglights on other cars are very low down under the bumper. The position is causing the lights to look like the headlights being flashed to other road users.

Edited 24 June, 201115 yr by Shadowphax

The signalling by flashing headlights - despite good intentions - is a bad practise. The problem lies in the interpretation, as flashing is used both to signal annoyance as well as the intention to let another driver pass in front. If the signal is misinterpreted, then you can have either another car suddenly in your sights or less significant, another ticked off driver mad at you.

You cannot really depend on the situation awareness of other drivers to interpret your intentions with the flash.

Edited 24 June, 201115 yr by Agerbundsen

Once flashed my lights when on holiday en France and driver jumped out and ran at my car shaking his fist, mind you soon turned away when I got out!!!.Must be a different interpretation with these foreign Johnnies mind you in this case I was the etrange rost bif. Best not to flash at all especially when in the local park wearing yer mac.

The location of the "fog lights" on the Yeti certainly doesn't help as someone mentioned above.

I've had a few people think that the DRLs was me driving around with "the spotlights" on. Yes I know, but some people obviously can't tell the difference.

Once flashed my lights when on holiday en France and driver jumped out and ran at my car shaking his fist, mind you soon turned away when I got out!!!.Must be a different interpretation with these foreign Johnnies

In most continental countries - certainly Italy, France and I'm pretty sure in Spain as well - flashing headlights typically means "look out, I'm coming through". When I lived in Italy, a number of friends visiting from the UK had rear-misses when encountering a local coming the other way on a narrow back street, due to exactly this difference of interpretation. (Most of them also lost their car radios - this was back in the 80s when most UK cars still had standard-fit, non-removable, dongle-free radios. In Turin this was regarded as an open invitation for a drug addict to smash a window and nick said radio. All the locals had removable radios, and it was the norm to see people sipping their mid-morning espresso with their radio sat next to them on the bar counter. When I got back to the UK and set out to buy a car, most of the dealers I spoke to had never heard of removable radios. Oh, and when I say "radio", some of them might have been radio cassette players but there was none of this new-fangled digital CD stuff on them days!)

Anyway...

The Highway Code says:

110

Flashing headlights. Only flash your headlights

to let other road users know that you are there

. Do not flash your headlights to convey any other message or intimidate other road users.

111

Never assume that flashing headlights is a signal inviting you to proceed

. Use your own judgement and proceed carefully.

(The emphasis is mine.)

It also says, in the introduction:

Although failure to comply with the other rules of the Code will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, The Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts (see 'The road user and the law') to establish liability. This includes rules which use advisory wording such as ‘should/should not’ or ‘do/do not’.

Therefore: anyone who has decided to proceed solely on the basis of misinterpreting a cornering foglight as a headlight flash is more likely to be found liable for any resulting accident.

Skoda UK assured me that cornering headlights (which are becoming increasing common on higher-end VAG cars) have been specifically approved by the DfT, so their legality in the event of an accident can't readily be challenged.

The location of the "fog lights" on the Yeti certainly doesn't help as someone mentioned above.

The cornering fogs only come on if the headlights are already on. Anyone who can interpret one light siutuated below the level of two bright, HID lights and coming on continuously as a headlight flash is probably better off being removed from the highway gene pool IMO.

I've had a few people think that the DRLs was me driving around with "the spotlights" on.

Which suggests that they have specifically not mistaken your DRLs for headlights.

I honestly don't believe that cornering fogs are an issue. I have not yet had anyone pull out on me because of them. I still sometimes do a double-take myself when I see another car doing it but that would always make me pause and think, not assume it's safe to go. As the old biker's adage says: "If in doubt, bottle out"!

Oh, and the aggressive reaction that has been reported from other drivers is typical idiot behaviour: if in the wrong, resort to bluster and intimidation. I think the best way to deal with it is simply not to react and just let them get it out of their system.

Edited 24 June, 201115 yr by ejstubbs

Very well said ejstubbs.... :yes:

Very well said ejstubbs.... :yes:

+1

-------The cornering fogs only come on if the headlights are already on. Anyone who can interpret one light siutuated below the level of two bright, HID lights and coming on continuously as a headlight flash is probably better off being removed from the highway gene pool IMO.--------

Well this has now answered my next question.

Having not got our SM yet I just wasn't sure.

I assume everyone was having their incidents at night in the dark, why? I asked myself, would they be coming on during the day and surely, I thought again, they should only come on when your headlights are on or if the light sensor (if fitted) thinks it's dark enough.

Can people please elaborate, are they coming on during the day?

And yes, there are some idiots on the roads at the moment who can't tell the difference with lights and become confused with new things.

Dom.

I was sorely tempted by cornering lights when speccing my SM but held off on cost grounds. My favorite car until now was a 1971 Citroen DS with what were then called "swivelling" lights. They were wonderful on twisting country roads. They were also gyroscopically levelled so when you went over a hump-back bridge they continued to point straight ahead rather than into the sky. I always wondered why no-one else took up the idea which seems so logical -- pointing some light where you're heading towards makes such good sense. But the Citroen ones didn't go on and off (with the attendant possiblity of confusion with flash signalling) you left them on for as long as the conditions were such that it was beneficial to have an additional set of lights, remembering of course that headlamps back then weren't as bright as now.

+1

+1

Very well said ejstubbs.... :yes:

+1

Why would anybody think 1 light that fades on and then off think they have been flashed beats me.

Sardom. They only work when the main lights are on Xenon or no Xenon,. Day or night.

+1

Why would anybody think 1 light that fades on and then off think they have been flashed beats me.

Sardom. They only work when the main lights are on Xenon or no Xenon,. Day or night.

And from a distance the glare of any headlight (be it Xenon or not) is usually enough to obscure a foglight in the normal position at the bottom of a car's bumper to other road users. The Yeti's is even higher and further obscured by this glare. So it is just the driver that gains from the cornering lights in my view.

Sardom: as stated this cornering foglight don't flick on and off as if you flashed your headlights. It fades in and out slowly. (Note the singular) Yet another reason why for the life of me I cannot see how someone can confuse ONE fog light fading in and out (whilst the headlights are on I might add) with a high beam flash of both the headlights. :no:

Exactly, Johann.

I think it just goes to prove there are some idiots on the road, and I try and keep out of their way.

So a +1 from me.

rockhopper, 900000 thankyou very much with that info.

All we have to do now is wait until ours turns up so we can play and experiment with it.

I would say though, in London, even a bad driver would have to have some sort of spacial awareness and needs to keep his eyes open at all times.

Down here they're a different breed, and I mean that literally.

You could drive with your eyes shut it's so quiet here sometimes. And I think some of them do.

But as Llanigraham said "I think it just goes to prove there are some idiots on the road, and I try and keep out of their way."

I think they all live around here.

We'll leave it at that shall we

Dom.

I seem to remember some time ago there was a video of a SM off road which showed the cornering fogs in operation. Have a search on YouTube I'm sure it was on there. You will see how they fade in and out.

I for one like the cornering fogs and have never, so far, had any problems with them.

Mine came on for first time last night - my first trip in dark. I liked them - no big deal but very nice.