2 hours ago, Yety said:

southern Europeans with long daylight hours

You mean, like Scotland? As I write this, the sun is still up here, just outside Glasgow.

On 21/07/2021 at 11:20, J.R. said:

there is no risk of discharging the battery if the headlights are left on but there is if only sidelights.

 

Have you got that the wrong way round?  (On second thoughts, did you mean: "there is no risk of discharging the battery if the headlights are left on because the car will turn them off" - which I agree would make sense.)

 

On 21/07/2021 at 17:18, Urrell said:

there are no conditions for safely driving on sidelights.

 

Although, as Cornish_Lad noted, it is allowed for in the Highway Code, in certain specific circumstances.  Not that I would ever do it, since my dipped headlights are correctly aligned.

 

What I can't imagine any justification for, though I see it all too often, is driving on sidelights plus fog lights.  If visibility is reduced sufficiently to make the use fog lights legal then it is also sufficiently reduced to oblige you to use dipped headlights (also as per the HC extract quoted by Cornish_Lad above, and also Rule 226), regardless of the presence or otherwise of illuminated street lighting.

Edited 23 July, 20214 yr by ejstubbs

With the headlights switched on and the ignition on, the h/lights /sidelights work, take the key out and that kills the lights, conversely if only the sidelights are on with the ignition switched on, when the key is removed the sidelights stay on but the car beeps to draw attention to the fact that the sidelights are still on!  --  go on, give it a whizz!

Edited 23 July, 20214 yr by Frenchtone

My headlight switch stay in "Auto" 99.999% of the time.

 

The odd time in fog I may decide to override it but the system is clever enough to be right most of the time in my opinion.

1 hour ago, ejstubbs said:

 

 

 

Although, as Cornish_Lad noted, it is 

What I can't imagine any justification for, though I see it all too often, is driving on sidelights plus fog lights.  If visibility is reduced sufficiently to make the use fog lights legal then it is also sufficiently reduced to oblige you to use dipped headlights (also as per the HC extract quoted by Cornish_Lad above, and also Rule 226), regardless of the presence or otherwise of illuminated street lighting.

I have on a few occasions over the years driven in fog thick enough that it was better to drive without headlights turned on (but of course with foglights on). Less so with the Yeti but with my previous cars the foglights were much lower so tended to shine under the fog, but having headlights on too created a whiteout in front of the car.

 

Indeed there is provision for driving in poor visibility with only side and fog lights in the law. This is also I presume why car headlight switches (at least on all the cars I've ever driven) allow that permutation to be selected.

 

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1989/1796/regulation/25/made

 

Edited 23 July, 20214 yr by muddyjim

44 minutes ago, muddyjim said:

I have on a few occasions over the years driven in fog thick enough that it was better to drive without headlights turned on

The younger generation do not seem to see that fog lights are low to shine under the fog instead of headlights just causing a white out.
I'm sure that most people treat fog lights as posing lights.

 

Edited 23 July, 20214 yr by Urrell

I do find Xenons and LED although brighter are better in fog due to the sharp cut off, you don't get the light scatter that you get with halogen.

Dipped headlights in "real" fog is not helped by upward scatter - even with modern lens.

 

A "proper" fog light will produce a flat beam with minimal upward scatter, illuminating the surface ahead, but not producing any glare and reducing vision.

 

As I haven't noticed any proper fog for years - household chimneys didn't help - I think it might be that older driving experience understands this and indeed, as said above, fog lights are just seen as trendy. Lots of people seem to drive around in daylight on side and fog lights - must be Vic Meldrew/OAP syndrome comes over me 

A few times I've ended up parked next to one of trendy people and casually mentioned they were driving around with fog lights on - face full of puzzlement 

17 minutes ago, Yety said:

Dipped headlights in "real" fog is not helped by upward scatter - even with modern lens.

 

A "proper" fog light will produce a flat beam with minimal upward scatter, illuminating the surface ahead, but not producing any glare and reducing vision.

 

As I haven't noticed any proper fog for years - household chimneys didn't help - I think it might be that older driving experience understands this and indeed, as said above, fog lights are just seen as trendy. Lots of people seem to drive around in daylight on side and fog lights - must be Vic Meldrew/OAP syndrome comes over me 

A few times I've ended up parked next to one of trendy people and casually mentioned they were driving around with fog lights on - face full of puzzlement 

 

 

Agree with the fog light comment but some cars do confuse,

 

In my wife's Mk1 Fabia vrs we were flashed many times and pulled over twice.

 

Explaining to the police the fog lights are DRL's got some confused looks and some checking of switches.