Tips for driving in the fog

Keepleft said :

GOD forbid,- we discuss mandating a ‘hazard-warning triangle’ (for breakdowns and crash scenes), or for ‘safety vests’ in cars to say EN471 Standard, a la EU requirement and now in a newly developing UN Road Traffic Convention, we might burst into tears at such audacious suggestions and require counselling:-)

http://www.securiteroutiere.gouv.fr/article.php3?id_article=184

My hazard warning triangle broke just the other day. Had it out in the cold weather whilst waiting for the plod to come out and put down a roo lying in the middle of the road. It fell apart when I tried to pack it up.

What’s the best model these days? Still Hella?

Keepleft said :

IT was thought, “seeing that fog is a ‘hazard’;- why should we not use our ‘hazard’-warning lights?” (Yikes). The advocates, including senior Illawarra police were blissfully unaware of rear fog lamps whatsoever, and had they known about them, should have gone down the path of advocating a mandatory adoption of the then ADR on the matter *for new market vehicle entries* instead.

THE rear fog lamp function was, and remains an optional item here in OZ owing ADR-13 Part 8.5.1, negligent in my view that this remains so. Standard taillights are utterly worthless in heavy fog, in bushfire smoke, in dustorms, in torrential rain et al.

We also have the problem of extremely large numbers of drivers wanting to show us all that their car has these wonderful bright newfangled lights by turning them on at the wrong time. Do people with rear fog lights realise that using them in the rain when there is no fog is actually more dangerous. It just causes more dazzling reflection off wet roads and makes the brake lights much less distinguishable resulting in a greater chance of being rear ended.

I hope to never see rear fog lights mandated in Australia until our road rules are enforced and our drivers are educated.

el said :

However, I’m yet to see someone using a rear fog light correctly (much the same as front fog lights come to think of it), and it seems they only get turned on by accident in clear conditions and cause massive annoyance to anyone travelling behind…

I saw a BMW I think it was turn on their rear foglight yesterday while driving in thick fog. Amazing but true.

+1 to Keepleft’s comments, especially the warning triangle stuff. However, I’m yet to see someone using a rear fog light correctly (much the same as front fog lights come to think of it), and it seems they only get turned on by accident in clear conditions and cause massive annoyance to anyone travelling behind…

(That you, Athol? 🙂 )

MrPC said :

Why on earth do people think the UN is relevant?

(and I’m not just talking in the current context of traffic)

THIS is a roads and traffic topic; the the referenced Convention seeks, as it always has, to harmonise the worlds basic rules-of-the-road.

IT is why we have domestic road rules like; keeping left-multi-lane, keeping left-generally, rules that tell us to ‘not reverse or do U-Turns on freeways/motorways’, rules that govern signal use etc and so on, heck – even road traffic signage and linemarking/colouring is generally internationalised in design and legal intent, because we are on a globe and we do tend to trade and visit each other, in this subject, that is why the relevance.

PRIOR to this we adopted the same basics from The League of Nations.

IT means, in this subject, that you can go anywhere on earth and expect the same, or similar primary rules of the road. And so it is with general ‘design rules’ for motor vehicles.

ADR’s are largely harmonised with those of world via the UNECE process, sure – Australia dumbs-down some tough internationally ‘mandatory’ design rules like that for example applying to rear fog lamps (UNECE 38/ dumbed-down as ADR 13 Part 8.5.1 & ADR52), but we do so for domestic industry purpose, to save a buck here and there for local manufacturers.

I see no real need for ADR’s and would be quite happy to simply adopt the ongoing UNECE design rules in full, Australia loves duplication and waste.

IN relation road traffic signage;- Australia does tend to be unique in the world with some of its sign designs, we an academic fetish for english language road signs in modern post 1990’s Australia, example; “END 50”, “START FREEWAY”, “END FREEWAY”, “WRONG WAY GO BACK” (Keh?? lol) rather than the international SYMBOLIC versions of same taught in national and state driver manuals to billions of people worldwide. Many of our signs mean bugger all to most NESB folk in the world.

WAY to go Australia.

SOMETIMES, our road transport agency staff and legal folk mis-interpret international road traffic signage, example – the speed derestriction (//). The “UN Convention on Road Traffic, Road Signs & Signals” catalogues international road traffic signs AND each signs required respective legal meaning, its just sometimes public service employees ‘forget’ over-the-years, where the sign was derived and who is in fact the legal owner and administrator of it, in my example the (//) sign is UN property.

I was amused many years ago when NSW Roads Minister took state-credit on TV for “hatched intersections”, not realising we adopted the idea in full from UNECE and UK experience. Ditto with coloured bus lanes, nothing too Aussie about those.

INTERNATIONAL stuff, via the UN process that benefits us. And when we go OS we will know what each of the last two examples mean.

Why on earth do people think the UN is relevant?

(And I’m not just talking in the current context of traffic)

THE ‘hazard-warning lights’ on moving vehicles allowance when under hazardous weather conditions causing reduced visibility, arrived into the ARR’s (as Rule 221-e) from a NSW regulation dating back to 1988, it in turn developed following a 52 vehicle multiple in heavy fog conditions on the F6 near Bulli earlier that year. (Have been a few around NSW, all are ‘speed-related’).

ADVOCATES of this allowance realised a need to to give road traffic behind a ‘greater opportunity’ of seeing lead vehicles when in heavy fog et al conditions. Effectively serving as defacto rear fog lamps. (After this event I fitted rear fogs to then DMR tow vehicles).

THE hazards move had bugger all to do with forward visibility, and so low-beam headlights *must* be on under lousy visibility conditions (or parkers and front fogs), this has always been a requirement here in OZ, owing our ‘contract’ with the “UN Convention on Road Traffic”.

IT was thought, “seeing that fog is a ‘hazard’;- why should we not use our ‘hazard’-warning lights?” (Yikes). The advocates, including senior Illawarra police were blissfully unaware of rear fog lamps whatsoever, and had they known about them, should have gone down the path of advocating a mandatory adoption of the then ADR on the matter *for new market vehicle entries* instead.

THE rear fog lamp function was, and remains an optional item here in OZ owing ADR-13 Part 8.5.1, negligent in my view that this remains so. Standard taillights are utterly worthless in heavy fog, in bushfire smoke, in dustorms, in torrential rain et al.

IF a car has a rear fog, use it and keep the hazard warning lights OFF, used only for their original designed intention; “breakdowns and crash scenes”.

WE have the problem of people changing lanes, sometimes abruptly, in heavy fog with their hazard warning lights flashing (indicators do not function), and then of course when you do get-a-crash, some people can assume the hazards they see looming ahead in the fog are mobile, but will quickly realise that it is a crash or breakdown, or stopped vehicle; a danger when people become use to seeing hazards routinely on all-the-time-when-in-fog, complacency sets it as to the REAL intention of that lamp function, and engineered danger falls to those attending the crash scene.

TO use hazard-warning lamps as defacto rear fogs runs also contrary to the UN Road Traffic Convention on the matter, but Australia, like other third and second world developing nations simply can’t quite get it right with the finer points of modern transport and road user safety items/agenda, try though it might, – it just can’t quite seem to achieve all that much.

GOD forbid,- we discuss mandating a ‘hazard-warning triangle’ (for breakdowns and crash scenes), or for ‘safety vests’ in cars to say EN471 Standard, a la EU requirement and now in a newly developing UN Road Traffic Convention, we might burst into tears at such audacious suggestions and require counselling:-)

http://www.securiteroutiere.gouv.fr/article.php3?id_article=184

At least you can always see a Volvo however I stress to my siblings and their siblings that in poor visual conditions put your headlights on whilst they sometimes do not assist your view others will see you and of course vice versa. end of sermon

That car a kilometre away, I know I can see its headlights 🙂

If you cannot make your turn in that time, YOU NEED TO HAND IN YOUR License, and self inflict aforesaid wheel lock.

Seriously we that short of threads JB?

As well as the ********* that leave their lights off in the fog, we also have those who insist on only turning them on when its absolutely pitch black, rather than when the light is fading in the evening. Strangely, these ones also seem to have a strong correlation with dark coloured cars.

You’d reckon they think that turning their lights on wastes petrol or something.

Taken with a camera, not a phone, so A-OK ;=)

2 months two threads on driving in fog, and the inability of Canberra drivers to recognise the need for lights, I think I see a pattern developing.

I always think they look like eyes, too.

Anna Key said :

Sorry John, were you using your mobile whilst driving?

Or just ignoring the green light?

Sorry John, were you using your mobile whilst driving?

Swaggie said :

Ummm what makes you think that anyone dumb enough to leave headlights Off in fog is clever enough to access the Internet and this site?

+1

Ummm what makes you think that anyone dumb enough to leave headlights Off in fog is clever enough to access the Internet and this site?

My headlights are of European design where I have an automatic setting or an on setting. I leave it in the on position and they remain on as long as the car is running.

When I stop the engine, they remain on, but when I open my door viola – they switch off automatically..

For this reason, they remain on whilst driving my car, as I will not forget to turn them off when I get to my destination.

Pretty sensible I think

+1 to johnboy’s original post.

MrPC said :

And in very heavy fog, put on your hazard lights as well. Or just pull over and wait for it to clear.

And for those with Hyundai’s, Subaru’s, or any other vehicle fitted with a rear fog light, thick fog it the only time you may use it!! Unless of course someone has turned it off for you with their foot thanks to it being on in clear conditions in the past, in which case your hazards are the go.

Another thing too many people don’t do in thick fog is slow down. I will not do 100-110 on highways when it’s foggy. I will go as fast as the fog warrants… kindly back off… I’m going slowly as I’d rather not slam into a Hyundai Excel stopped on the highway with the driver trying to work out why their rear fog light has been kicked in. 🙂

as my 2 cars are both light in colour, one silver, one white, I always put my lights on in fog or rain. i don’t want to have an accident, especially when in the silver car, as it is usually filled with the clan.

MrPC said :

And in very heavy fog, put on your hazard lights as well. Or just pull over and wait for it to clear.

Heh!

People in Canberra don’t understand the concept of headlights, it is more common in people who drive cars that are of a colour least likely to be able to be seen in bad light.

I sit in my office and look out the window about 4.45pm and watch the idiots drive in the almost dark without headlights. When I drive to work in the morning, there are people driving without headlights. When I drive in the rain, there are people driving with no headlights. But then when it is completely dark, the high beam fog lights all get switched on. Stupidity either way.

But the headlight control thingy is so hard to find, hidden away there somewhere behind the hard to find indicator thingy.

And in very heavy fog, put on your hazard lights as well. Or just pull over and wait for it to clear.