Spot Lights & Mot

If they are over bonnet height, they have to be on an isolator switch so that they do not come on with main beam etc.

If you dont have such a switch, wire one in so that they can be turned off....

Or take the bulbs out for the MOT ;)

Is this Landrover bonnet height, or am I ok with my Berliet at about 20ft? :-)

I think there is a lower limit of below 500mm where they can only be used in conditions fog or falling snow but this has been covered in depth on here fairly recently and seems to be a bit of a minefield AFAIR.

Martin

As I understand it, the points raised are construction and use - there is NO requirement to test additional lamps on an MOT, or, for that matter, reversing and front fog lamps either! You cannot fail an MOT for having spots coming on with the main beam so don't worry about it. The limit of the testers authority for testing front lamps is standard side, low and main, for condition, operation and beam pattern. Badger.

On or around Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:13:02 +0100, "Badger" enlightened us thusly:

The only thing for MOT purposes is all main beam lamps (obligatory and optional) should be off when on dipped or sidelights. Aside from that, they don't have to work or anything else.

There are very few requirements for optional main beam lamps - I think they're supposed to be white or yellow, and to go off when the dipped beams are on, but that's about it.

Last point is of note to fuckbrain with a volvo, who, a few years ago, when I pointed out to him that he had is fog lights on when it wasn't foggy, claimed that they were "driving lamps". Bullshit, mister. Actually, this is one thing I'd like to see additional regulation on and made retrospective to boot - make fog lamps and dipped beams mutually exclusive so that you can have one or the other, not both. There's no credible reason for having front fogs on as well as dipped beams.

and it's Road Vehicles (Lighting) Regulations 1989 (as amended subsequently) not C&U... :-)

On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:22:07 +0100, Austin Shackles wrote this gibberish:

thats one thats always got on my nerves too.

In message , Austin Shackles writes

There's no credible reason for having front fog lights at all. IME they are bloody useless.

They were very credible when we got 'pea soupers' as the fog was known 50 years ago, and you *didn't* want dipped beam or any other beam on with the fog lights. They were yellow coloured then to reduce the back glare (which they needed to be) but I don't think I've used them since for 40 odd years, nor am I likely to.

Martin

Sounds as if you have never come across real fog then. Fog with visibility down to 15yds at best, front fogs then come into their own by allowing you to see the center line or verge a few feet in front of the car. I've driven through hill fogs up here where you almost have to choose to follow the verge or the center line cause if you get close enough to see one you seriously lose visibility of the other. Dipped beam under those circumstances just glares right back at you.

Like rear fogs they should only be used under conditions of severly reduced visibility and without dipped beam. If you can see better with dipped than front fog you don't need the front fogs.

On or around Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:08:58 +0100, hugh enlightened us thusly:

I have actually used them for the stated purpose, viz. seeing in thick fog with less glare, about 3 times in my life... Mind, not all the motors I've had had them, so maybe had they all been fitted, I'd have used them 6 times.

That's happened to me just twice, and it's amazing how disorientating it is! I got completely lost in it. At the time I had an extremely primitive sat nav system (this was about 5 years ago), I turned that on and was surprised to find I was less than half a mile from home but completely lost.

Out here in North Dorset we get lots of thick fog at some times of the year, and sometimes, just sometimes, it gets thick enough to experience the need to avoid putting lights on high beam, most of the time in fog high beam helps but when it gets thick enough it's a hinderance.

I don't think we've had any fog recently that's been severe enough to warrant the use of front foglights but I think rear fogs are a necessity for obvious reasons, I only wish once they know and can see you're behind them they would switch them off as your vision is restricted to just a glaring red light which you have no option but to follow. Some folk never seem to consider other road users.

Martin

In message , Austin Shackles writes

And usually they are so coated in grime that you have to get out and wipe them to have any effect at all.

Agreed, I've "got lost" on the single road between here and Teesdale. A road I know well but it is a bit bendy and no real land marks apart from a couple of cattle grids about 5 miles apart. After a few miles of thick fog you don't know which bend you are about to approach, you could be almost anywhere along the 15 miles between here and High Force.

Same applies when it's snowed and is foggy, the snow poles are just that little bit too far apart to see from one to the next... I work on the basis of if it's not bumpy I must still be on the road. B-)

Not real fog then. B-) The hill fog up here is frequently thick enough for high beam to produce more glare than increased visibility, dipped is OK most of the time but occasionally it has to be just the front fogs.

So where's "here" Dave?

Northern England, he mentioned Teesdale and High Force, two places oop north somewhere roughly between Newcastle and Leeds.

I think the fog he talks about may be industrial pollution and smoke from the sulphur fields and volcanos, they have that kind of thing up there, that and the hordes of marauding zombies.

You mean the Jocks? Whatever happened to Hadrians Wall?

Which bits of "the single road between here and Teesdale", "no real land marks apart from a couple of cattle grids" or "15 miles between here and High Force." are you having trouble with?

Very roughly. Most road maps have a big white area where "here" is as there are only two A roads that form a cross on the town with each arm being around 15 miles long before they meet another A road.

Not any more, the air is wonderfully clean up here. No need to wipe the washing line down before hanging out the washing liek we had to down south. And it takes a tractor or other diesel powered vehicle to drive past on cold days for there to be enough particulates in the air to act as nuclei for your breath to condense on.

But not so long ago (100 - 200 years) it would have been some what different with industrial pollution from the lead smelters. There are many flues built up the from the valleys to chimneys on the fells to get the smoke and muck from the larger smelt mills out of the valleys.

I guess we've all seen that plonker that has to play with his lights at the first sign of rain.