Do you use full beams when driving on Motorways?

teatoast

CiniO wrote: »

Dipped headlights give you view for about 20 - 40 metres in front of the car. (assume 30).

That's the distance you travel is less then one second at 120km/h.
If you are travelling faster (f.e. 200km/h) you move 30 metres in about 0.5 second.

So pretty much without your full beam you can't really see anything useful.
Whatever you'll see in your dipped headlighs will be too close to act.

Yeah I simply don't feel safe driving on unlit motorway without full lights on. You're driving at a fast speed and not seeing very far in front of you. Plus there's a large section of the motorway near my house that has deer warning signs up.

I don't even always dip my lights if theres a thick bush between the lanes. You can usually get an indication of how much light is crossing over the lanes and if it seems like full lights could be uncomfortable then I'll dip but otherwise I won't.

2 stroke

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

I don't know why everyone gets so hung up about front fogs, to my eyes they make little or no difference.
Rear fogs are a HUGE bugbear of mine though.

I have perfect eyesight, tested recently. I find front foglights very annoying, especially comming up behind me, especially those drivers that sit on your rere and refuse to overtake. I find this greatly increases driver fatigue on long journeys.

dr.fuzzenstein

CiniO wrote: »

Not to go into the talk if they dazzle or not (in my opinion sometimes they do dazzle a lot) please tell me:

What's the point in turning them on if there's no fog?
I can't see any single reason.

True, no reason to turn on your front fogs and especially your rear fogs when there's no fog.
I do not use my front or rear fogs unless it's absolute pea soup out there and I know that many people are annoyed by them because they are used my arseholes bullying their way through traffic.
However, as front fogs shine light downwards at the front of the car the only things you dazzle are at about bumper hight.
And I wear glasses, which means that any bright light usually dazzles me more due to the added reflection of the lenses. And the coating doesn't make that much of a difference.
But even before anti-glare coating front fogs would never bother me.
It's simply a mental hangup people have about them, but as far as actually emitted light goes that finds it's way into the cabin, they are negligible.
Far worse are rear fogs, they are designed to shine a very strong red light directly into your eyes.
Lovely when you're sitting behind a complete imbecile on a completely clear day and he/she doesn't even know they're on.
I usually just turn on my full lights at them till they get it. if they don't, tough, you got to suffer for your ignorance.
Misaligned lights are a menace, how can there still be misaligned lights after the NCT has been around so long?
And of course, to get back to where this thread started, pillocks who won't turn off their full lights on a motorway.
How often have you been blinded from behind because the octogenarian behind you has had them on for the last three hours, wondering "why is everyone flashing me tonight? They must all know me!" and is probably waving at everyone.

2 stroke

Nothing as bad actually as overtaking a car just to get ahead of those annoying red fog lights, just to find front foglights in your mirrors.

pippip

I have no problem with front fogs. Don't dazzle me at all in less they are fitted wrong or out of alignment. They are designed to light up the road surface so really shouldn't be effecting your eyes. Only thing about front fogs in the rear view or in front at night is that it's harder to judge distance of the car.

rear ones are designed to be as bright as possible and are a complete wreck the head.

Ps this all a bit off topic and has been discussed to death on other threads

whiterebel

Yawns wrote: »

I'd be happy if they just started pulling people over for broken lights or fog lights on and fined them €80. People will started getting them fixed or looking to make sure they are not switched on. Forgive my ignorance but when a rear fog light is on, it will also be a sign on the drivers dash lit up so it's not hard to see that it's on.

The mis alignment gets caught at NCT anyway as will broken lights (but it's far more important about broken lights for guards imo than misalign ), but unfortunatly fogs lights won't as it's the thick numpty driver.

Off topic, but absolutely spot on here. Half the cars on the roads today seem to have one light working, or the adjustment all over the bloody place. And lest we forget, the ones who don't think they have to dip under ANY circumstances..... Driving at night is becoming a real hazard in this country.

I use full heads on unlit stretches, but dip for oncoming no matter what the situation with the median, and coming up on traffic ahead.

Nissan doctor

If find it amazing that people are saying they don't use them on motorways that they are familiar with because they know what to expect!! Its obvious that there isn't going to be any sudden 90 degree bends on a motorway but basic intelligence would tell you that its animals(dead or alive), items fallen from other vehicles, tyre fragments etc etc that you will never be able to forsee. You will only have the from the time they enter the beam of your headlights to react so surely, once the road is clear of traffic, its obviously better to see as far ahead as you can.


Another thing that bugs me, people saying they have auto dip lights so they just leave it to the car to decide?? FFS, why not just buy a car with colision avoidance(auto braking) and lane departure correction and then you won't have to bother with driving the car at all!

Auto dim lights are there in case you forget to dim the lights yourself IMO

vibe666

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

And I wear glasses, which means that any bright light usually dazzles me more due to the added reflection of the lenses. And the coating doesn't make that much of a difference.
But even before anti-glare coating front fogs would never bother me.
It's simply a mental hangup people have about them, but as far as actually emitted light goes that finds it's way into the cabin, they are negligible.

you must be that guy who everyone's talking about who did all the research into what types of lights do and don't dazzle people. you know the one who interviewed and tested every driver on the road and is fully qualified to say that foglight dazzle is a myth. :rolleyes:

Mc Love

I think it is accepted that certain motorists havent a clue how to use their lights. After coming back from a trip on the M7 Limerick SRR a car had their full beams on, with a car in front indicating to them with their hazards and rear fogs that there may be something wrong - lights still on

I overtake and do the same thing - lights still on

Lights still on as I look in my rear view mirror and another car signalling to them that their full beams are on!

If I wasnt in such a rush to eat my dinner I would have stayed in front of them with my rear fogs and hazards on! Complete muppetry

vibe666

Mc Love wrote: »

I think it is accepted that certain motorists havent a clue how to use their lights or anything else attached to the car...<snip> Complete muppetry

FYP. :pac:

GTE

Its a common sense answer to me.
I use them on unlit sections where there is no traffic that could be blinded.

What annoyes me are newer roads that dont have a high wall or hedge in the central median like on the older section of the M4 compared to the newer section for example. The older part is fine to have full beams on with oncoming traffic unless there is a truck.

Going to Belfast on the new stretch of the A1 is frustrating. There is just the crash barrier and you just cant use full beams since there is usually one or two cars every once and a while to stop you from doing so.

It is not that I can't drive or feel its not safe to drive on just dips but at night having the most light you can is very important with the speed and considering there are motorways where you can easilly have full beams on and not disturb other traffic (except maybe trucks to be fair) then I don't understand why the new roads dont have this. It seems to me there is an element of laziness in the road design.

langdang

bbk wrote: »

It seems to me there is an element of laziness in the road design.

cheapiness rather than laziness no doubt. Would be great if they all had some sort of wooden fence/hoarding so you could use full beams more often.
Deer would be an issue in some places, although I wouldn't fancy the damage even a badger would do to a rad or an intercooler on a low slung car.