I realize it will be a long time before this post is shown given scheduling concerns, but I really needed to get this off my chest. No, your “automatic” headlights don’t come on in fog, especially a bright fog.
During the second week of January 2018, Illinois went from wind chills of well below zero and snow covered ground to fifty degree days. On the first day of that transition my senior citizen mother asked me to drive her around because she didn’t feel safe in the fog. No problem. I like tooling around in my Jeep and this would give me an excuse to use the fog lights.
On our way over to Dwight, IL I stopped counting the number of cars coming at us out of the fog without any headlights. These fools didn’t even buy a vehicle which had daytime running lights. Of course, day time running lights don’t help the vehicles behind you see you before they park in your trunk, but at least on-coming traffic would have had a chance.
In never ending proof that Darwin was wrong, one genetic misfit coming out of Dwight on highway 17 in a red minivan was trying to pass a string of slow moving tractor trailers in the fog. I know it was a string of them because a few passed me then there was suddenly this minivan in my lane. No, I didn’t hit them, mostly because I braked rather solidly and started easing onto the shoulder the the tractor trailer they were about to pass did some serious braking of their own. At times like this I wish I had one of those on-board vehicle cams so I could have forwarded the video to law enforcement. The camera would have gotten the plate number while I was busy saving my life.
