Yellow vs White Fog Lamps ?

[Timo04]

What is the practical advantage, if any, of yellow/amber lensed fog lamps vs the clear ones? I often hear the yellow fog lamps referred to as the "Euro" style or version. However I believe most cars in Europe these days use the "regular" clear/white fog lamps like so many of our cars here in the US. At least this has been my experience. Please advise. TIA!

[Andrew S]

Not sure if there is any real advantage/disadvantage. All I know, being a Citroen enthusiast, is that French cars at one time had yellow headlights. That's where the "euro-look" phrase originates from. I have heard that it's supposed to create less glare for oncoming traffic to deal with. You can even buy yellow headlight lens paint here in the UK to use when you wish to travel in France.

Andrew.

[Timo04]

Thanks Andrew! The yellow head light paint is real interesting, never heard of that before!

I found this interesting article posted on the Alfa BB:

http://www.danielsternlighting.com/tech/lights/light_color/light_color.html

[SubGothius]

Excellent article; I've read other essays on that site, and he really seems to know his stuff -- no mere marketing folderol, that!

The interesting point (alluded to in the essay and IIRC expounded in more detail elsewhere on the site) is that blue light is generally an undesirable thing, making all those faddish, bluish-tinted bulbs worse than ineffective -- they only inhibit light intensity by filtering out the more-useful wavelengths, passing only weakened light towards the more scatter-prone blue range. True HID "arclights" are superior for other reasons, with their inherently-bluish (not filtered/tinted) signature spectrum actually being one of their few drawback side-effects. However, HIDs' distinctive, attention-getting appearance, combined with the cachet of their recent provision on high-end/performance marques, led to ignorant peacock-strutting poseurs buying blue-tinted bulbs for ride-pimping purposes, not realizing (or perhaps not caring) that they have actually impaired their cars' usable headlight performace.

Moral of the story: avoid blue-tinted bulbs, and instead go for untinted bulbs with a high-lumen output for their (presumably legal ;) ) rated wattage. Yellow tints can also be useful, particularly for foglamps (and I presume we all know the difference between foglamps and driving/rally lights), if you're willing to tradeoff some overall light intensity for the sake of having less scatter-prone blue in the spectrum.