Astra fog lights

You have two side on a car to look down, two brake lights allows for one to fail, and also to see that the car ahead of the one in front is braking, ditto tail lights...

Fog lights are used (properly) a couple of times a year and arn't critical to safe driving, just helpful in rare cases.

Paul explained on 06/01/2010 :

Unless you can actually see the tail lights, pne light provides no sense of the distance.

You don't need to know the distance, just that there is something unexpected in front of you.

How many red lights on the back of a train guard's van? How many red lights on the port side of a small boat?

Same principle - there's something to be aware of - not how far away it is.

Paul explained on 06/01/2010 :

If there is no need for two, why do they insist on two tail lights?

On a boat you see a red, possibly a green and a white.

When following lights, you need to have some idea how far a away they are. So far as a train is concerned, if a driver can see the red light, they are already too close.

I don't understand how those have met type approval, the buses with led lights are one of the worst offenders.

but you do have an internal mirror as well.

"Mrcheerful" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Nor I. Probably because the regs haven't kept up with the horrors which technology can inflict.

Nowhere near as bad as Range-Rovers.

My missus once had a Mk1 Golf (1981 I think). The wiring and plug were in place on the non-light side and there was just a flimsy bit of moulded plastic across the hole in the light unit which prevented a bulb being inserted. I just snapped off the plastic with my finger, inserted a bulb and connected the plug....... two rear fogs in 2 minutes for the price of a bulb.

I don't think it was anything to do with penny pinching. I think it was to do with differentiating between model specs. Ours was a lowish spec and didn't merit two rear fogs.

To allow for failure and also if a vehicle is pulling out from the edge of the road into traffic. In fact your better thinking of the rear lights as 'edge defining' so you don't misinterpret a car as a motorbike and collide with one of its unlit edges.

Red is one side, green the other - if you can see both its coming directly towards you! If you can also see white, its heading away from you. If you see red and white is crossing one way, vice versa green and white.

All very useful on open water, completely different to following a track where you just need to know whether something is in your way.

Thats the only point in a fog light, prevent you getting to close to a car in front. One is enough to define it.

My '90 SAAB has a pair of functional rear fogs. My 2004 9-5 has a complete pair of rear fog lights but one side has a break cut into the conductor to prevent the lamp from lighting. Fortunately they're symmetrical so I just flipped the bulb holders between light fittings to make it legal in Belgium.

For safety's sake if ye have found this on google - find somewhere else to colabarate the above wiring information.

"IanT" is known for fanciful dreaming about his abilities. This may have come out of the haynes manual - or not :-(

I almost typed something along the lines of "you can guess what happened next" with a smiley.

I just assumed it came from Vauxhall like that.

But does one wire really save that much money?

That's worrying. Whilst fog lights may not be used often, it's dangerous if they are not working on the rare occasions you need them. And if peo[ple aren't occasionally checking the fogs, that would suggest they aren't checking their other lights too. I only check them once every so often but I think it's worth doing to be safe.

I am told that the wires are there but it's too cold to crawl underneath and check!

Thanks again.

I'm not very good with which Astra is which; I just typed mk5 into google to get a picture and yes it is a mk5 that we have.

Thanks for the detailed instructions

Thanks that was going to be my next question

I quite agree. I like symmetrical lights ;)

I did briefly wonder whether everything was connected and the computer was only programmed to switch one on. I would think that would be the easiest way to cater for different countries.

LOL!

I regularly see cars with lights not working, even headlights. Weeks later you can see the same car with the same fault.

The chances of the average driver checking rear fogs is minimal; for a start it would assume (s)he knew how to turn them on.

Chris

But could you argue that if you saw someone with one fog light, it could be someone braking who has one blown brake light? There are plenty of those about.

If you followed from some distance, wouldn't it be obvious that it was a fog light because it was always on?

If it's foggy, wouldn't the fog impede the view of the other lights?

I'm not saying either point of view is right, just suggesting alternatives.

True but it gives you some redundancy if one bulb is blown.

I'm not convinced it's a good argument, but when you brake both lights come on, which is more obvious when you've only got one fog lamp. It's a fairly irrelevant argument if you've got a working high level brake light.

Fred gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I'd hazard a guess that my fog light switch is used as much by the MOT tester as by me.