What Color Fog Lights Are Legal in California
While driving a car, visibility is one aspect to consider for your safety and the safety of other road users.
You may encounter natural environmental conditions that can disrupt your vision on the road, such as fog. Fog can cause cloudiness on your way, thereby making navigation difficult. Driving carefully, using the wipers, and paying full attention to the road may no longer be enough. You need the correct type of fog light to tackle the problem.
These days, there is a debate about yellow fog lights versus white fog lights, which might interest you.
WHAT ARE FOG LIGHTS?
You can be a decent driver and owner of a vehicle, yet you might not have insight into these sorts of vehicle lights. Some people may mistake these car lights for headlights, as many of these lights are mounted on the front of a car and work to provide illumination to the driver in poor visibility conditions. However, fog lights differ from headlights in both function and form.
Fog lights are usually placed under the headlights, but some car models have them mounted on their bumpers. They by and large discharge yellow light, which has the most imperative infiltration capacity among every single colored light. This helps the driver to have much better visibility on foggy days. You can also find others that produce white light. White light from bulbs can sometimes cause glare in the eyes of approaching road users.
YELLOW VS. WHITE FOG LIGHTS: HEAD-TO-HEAD COMPARISON CHART
Yellow Vs. White Fog Lights Differences: Detailed Analysis
Appearance
As the name implies, the yellow fog light takes on a yellow color when turned on. This kind of fog light is perhaps the most widely recognized; many incline toward them because the natural eye is more lenient toward yellow lights. It enhances a car's aesthetic appearance, and users can turn it on to make a statement. Then again, a complete component of the white light is that it has a white appearance, nearly with a somewhat blue shade. It is popular with many car owners because it brings certain simplicity.
Bulb Compatibility
There are no significant differences between yellow and white fog lights in bulb compatibility, as both can work with halogen or LED bulbs. Putting HID in the fog lights is not advisable. When people drive at night, HID lights provide them with more light to see, especially in the area immediately in front of the vehicle. In theory, this could make HID lights safer for the driver, but in the real sense, it could cause more danger because the solid blue light they emit can blind other road users.
Color Temperature
The color of the yellow and white lights differs because of their different temperatures. By looking at the light color temperature chart, you can see that yellow light functions around 2,000-3,000 kelvins, while the white fog light is between 5,000 and 6,000 kelvins.
Brightness
The yellow fog light reduces glare towards other drivers. This is particularly significant during rain, snow, or fog, or anytime water is in the air reflecting light towards you. That is why the yellow light used to be the more common fog light. However, the white fog light enlightens the street better due to its brightness than the yellow one.
Distance
The yellow fog light illuminates the path ahead at a greater distance because it has a longer wavelength. Unlike the yellow fog light, the white fog light is less effective due to its shorter wavelength causing it to refract or bounce backlight.
Glare
The white fog light produces more glare when compared to the yellow fog, which has no glare.
Are Yellow or White Fog Lights Illegal?
This is a great question to consider depending on your location or where you plan to visit. Various domains may have explicit laws concerning the utilization of these car lights. For example, in Florida, traffic laws prohibit fog lights when other vehicles are on the road unless there is fog.
Yellow vs. White Fog Lights: Which Are Better?
When choosing the right fog light between white and yellow, it's up to your preference. It would help if you considered each of the benefits and drawbacks, which will help you decide which is better for your vehicle.
The Pros of the Yellow Fog Light
- Ease of contact with the human eye. The human eyes will ideally indulge the yellow light, whether focused on approaching road users or the road.
- It ensures safety because it takes less effort to see.
- Yellow fog lights cut well through different environmental conditions capable of affecting vision.
- It is important for the perception of depth, which is helpful if you are driving in an unfamiliar environment.
- The yellow lights also add extra beauty to the car.
The Cons of Yellow Fog Light
- The main drawback of the yellow light is that it might not be sufficiently bright in some situations. This issue becomes evident when utilizing a yellow fog light color.
The Pros of White Fog Light
- The white fog light brings some straightforwardness, which numerous vehicle owners appreciate.
- It is adaptable, which infers that you can utilize it as a standard vehicle light.
- It is exceptionally brilliant and can carry great enlightenment to dark spots.
The Cons of White Fog Light
- It can be too bright, making it unsuitable for human vision. Such brightness can cause tension while driving.
- There is the danger of refraction because of its short frequency, expanding the odds of glares.
Fog Light Tips
Fog lights are imperative extras for your car as they help you move around in weather conditions where permeability is poor.
Yellow and white fog lights are more beneficial in dealing with fog, especially for small car drivers, compared with other colored lights such as blue, violet, and indigo. Try to avoid these other colored lights because they have very short wavelengths and are difficult to comprehend by the human eye. The blue light, for instance, focuses on the front of the eyes, while the yellow color hits the retina at the right point, making it easier to process.
If you have them, the main tip is to use them wherever circumstances call for it, during storms, downpours, snow, and fog.
If in doubt, which one to use, do more research and talk with a local vehicle lighting expert for guidance.
Also, when you get out of your vehicle for whatever reason, never leave the fog lights on because they will deplete your battery, just like regular headlights.
Final Thoughts
The vehicle lighting system is essential while driving as it helps to increase visibility and preserves road safety. Among the different kinds of lights accessible on present-day vehicles are the fog lights, which are the little lights under the headlights. As the name Implies, they assume a fundamental part in foggy conditions, empowering the driver to see through the cloud.
Tim Miller, a mechanic and car blogger from Denver, Colorado, is the Editor-in-Chief of gmundcars.com – a blog about Automotive. He has had over 10 years of experience in the car repair and maintenance field and has been writing articles to share his experiences and expertise. Some of his reviews and articles about car parts and tools can be found on his website. Check him out on Facebook and Twitter
What Color Fog Lights Are Legal in California
Source: https://ww2.motorists.org/blog/yellow-vs-white-fog-lights/