Yellow lights - fog and long beam - legislation

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MercedesDriver

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Getting into foggy season I've tried to find on web (PH and other) if yellow lights are legal or not but with no success. Only what I've found is this from MOT manual "Two front position lamps must be fitted, one on each side and show a steady white light to the front (or yellow if incorporated in a yellow headlamp)".
"Yellow headlamp" is a term I've never heard of?!
I remember French cars being fitted with yellow lights but always thought those were only yellow bulbs not the yellow headlamps.
If I fit yellow bulbs is it legal or not?
Do you know anything about it?
 
renault12ts said:
Legal...but why would you want to?
Couple of times I was driving through Belgium on foggy nights and had an impression that their yellowish/orangish street lights provide much better visibility than white ones. Somehow I always get to much glare of white in fog.
 
I know the yellow is supposed to be better in the fog

Used to be fairly common in ye ol' days

DSC00643.jpg
 
Why not use a yellow tint film? That way it can be removed if required

yellow headlight tint | eBay
 
Had yellow fogs when I lived in Toronto, albeit 20 yrs ago: great during winter months, particularly when it's snowing.

Still a pretty popular mod over there, and rightly so - the white light is totally useless in a snow.
 
bob6600 said:
Why not use a yellow tint film? That way it can be removed if required yellow headlight tint | eBay
Well I would like to avoid this possibility of being required to remove it hence the question of legality.
GLK said:
Had yellow fogs when I lived in Toronto, albeit 20 yrs ago: great during winter months, particularly when it's snowing. Still a pretty popular mod over there, and rightly so - the white light is totally useless in a snow.
Fog, snow as long it's white it's no good with white lights.
 
Selective yellow lamps were done with tinted lenses, tinted reflectors or tinted bulbs i believe? While tinted lenses was the most common AFAIK all are still legal pretty much everywhere with regards to stuff like construction & use regulations, European ece regs, SAE whatever that the Septics use etc even if type approval for new cars requires that headlamps are white?

I doubt most plod would be that interested either way but if you really don't want any attention bear in mind they're often clueless about anything not routine anyway... most people that drive old cars have been tugged at least once for not wearing a seatbelt while driving a car that predates seatbelts by several years. Most usually realise their mistake pretty quickly but there's always the occasional spotty little jobsworth for example (and related to yellow headlamps) traffic police, MOT, traffic laws, yellow headlights | West Briton


Daniel Stern Lighting Consultancy and Supply is a good piece for anyone that's never been snowboarding/skiing and found out that contrast / depth perception is waaaaaaaaay better with some yellow tinted googles than regular sunglasses. Especially on overcast days and even more especially in a white out

As well as various chavvy tints Philips have a yellow tint in their colour vision range. It's not gonna be even close to a 'real' selective yellow but from what i've seen of them (popular on VWs round my way, unfortunately usually with a green or purplish tinge :rolleyes:) should(?) be better in poor visibility than the usual approach of 'adding' more blues to produce a whiter light and loads of glare

Proper selective yellow bulbs are probably hard or impossible to find these days, especially decent quality? The dupli color metal cast paint mentioned in that link is available in the UK but isn't particulary cheap at £16ish / aerosol. Krylon or plasti-cote stained glass paint is cheaper. Dunno how long any of them would hold up for if 'painting' the bulb... glass paint lasts ages on indicator bulbs but obviously they don't get as hot or used as much as headlamps
 

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