I work for a fire department and I am thinking of putting a Flasher on them to give me some rear warning without cutting holes in tail lights for strobes.

 

Tailgaters...

I have been rear ended twice in the last two years (luckily not in my Jaguar). In both cases, although traffic in front of me had stopped suddenly, I still had enough time to look in my rear view mirror, see the idiot tailgater six inches behind my rear bumper, and start repeatedly pumping my brakes to get his attention. Of course in both cases, "dumb a--" failed to look and BANG! Time to call the State Police.

BTW, in one of the cases, "dumb a--" told the trooper he had "sneezed" and that is why he did not stop in time....

"Dumb a--"

 

I am thinking about replacing factory bulbs in rear fog lamps with LEDs and running them all the time

 

Great way to fail a safety inspection or get pulled over by the cops!

 

Both, over here.

 

I should have clarified - I am in Ohio, US. Around here very few cars have rear facing red fog lamps (mostly older European imports like Jaguar, Land Rovers, etc.) It's perfectly legal to drive with them on whenever, and no one really cares. Except it looks kind of interesting. But it's good to know that you can't drive with them in Canada.

 

You probably can in fog (or falling snow or maybe some other times, if like here) - basically any time conditions make it hard for your car to be seen if you just have normal rear lights on.

 

Thanks, JagV8! I just looked up Ohio Revised Code on fog lights, and we don't even have a mention of anything to the rear. So I agree - bad weather, turn them on.

Lawriter - OAC - 4501-15-06 Spot lights and auxiliary driving lights.

 

Bright red lights at the rear of a car that look like brake lights must actually be brake lights and operate as such. If they don't go on and off with the brake pedal, and instead are on at all times does not comply with road safety regulations- in any state of the union.

 

Interesting. Virtually contrary to here, then, where the intention is that in bad enough conditions fogs be used to render a vehicle visible (rather than hard to see until too late).

 

Let me restate- they are not illegal to have on a vehicle here.

There are no regulations preventing such. There's also no regulation to mandate that they be present. Since there are no regulations mandating their presence there are no regulations saying that you must or should use them under certain circumstances and not under other circumstances.

On the other hand, there are regulations that govern the number, type, placement and brightness level of park and brake lights. A vehicle driving around at night in clear weather with what appears to be brake lights that are on at all times contravenes the law governing vehicle lighting and will attract unwanted attention from the wrong people.

Ticket or not, we've all driven behind the a**hole that leaves his rear fogs on all the time, just like the a**hole that won't dim his high beams.

Don't be that a**hole.

 

Other than that here they're required to be fitted (I think), that's quite similar. Using them in clear weather here is also asking for trouble (likely to be rather minor).