Fog/Driving Lights

The lighting system of a motor vehicle consists of lighting and signalling devices mounted or integrated to the front, sides and rear of the vehicle. more...

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The purpose of this system is to provide illumination for the driver to operate the vehicle safely after dark, to increase the visibility of the vehicle, and to display information about the vehicle's presence, position, size, direction of travel, and driver's intentions regarding direction and speed of travel.

Forward illumination

Forward illumination is provided by main- ("high") and dipped- ("low") beam headlamps, which may be augmented by auxiliary fog lamps, driving lamps, and/or cornering lamps.

Headlamps

Dipped beam (low beam, passing beam, meeting beam)

Dipped-beam (low-beam, passing-beam, meeting-beam) headlamps provide a distribution of light designed to provide adequate forward and lateral illumination with limits on light directed towards the eyes of other road users, to control glare. This beam is intended for use whenever other vehicles are present ahead. The international ECE Regulations for filament headlamps and for high-intensity discharge headlamps specify a beam with a sharp, asymmetric cutoff preventing significant amounts of light from being cast into the eyes of drivers of preceding or oncoming cars. Control of glare is less strict in the North American SAE beam standard contained in FMVSS / CMVSS 108 .

Main beam (high beam, driving beam, full beam)

Main-beam (high-beam, driving-beam) headlamps provide a bright, centre-weighted distribution of light with no particular control of light directed towards other road users' eyes. As such, they are only suitable for use when alone on the road, as the glare they produce will dazzle other drivers. International ECE Regulations, permit higher-intensity high-beam headlamps than are allowed under North American regulations.

Auxiliary lamps

Driving lamps

"Driving lamp" is a term deriving from the early days of nighttime driving, when it was relatively rare to encounter an opposing vehicle. Only on those rare occasions when one did briefly face opposing traffic would one use the dimmed or "passing beam". The full or "bright" beam was therefore known as the driving beam, and this terminology is still found in international ECE Regulations, which do not distinguish between a vehicle's primary (mandatory) and auxiliary (optional) upper/driving beam lamps. The "driving beam" term has been supplanted in North American regulations by the functionally descriptive term auxiliary high-beam lamp. They are most notably fitted on rallying cars, and are occasionally fitted to production vehicles derived from or imitating such cars. They are common in countries with large stretches of unlit roads, or in regions such as the Nordic countries where the period of daylight is short during winter. Some countries may pose limitations on usage of driving lamps or any auxiliary lamps. For example, in Russia it is allowed to install no more than three pairs of lights (including standard lights installed on factory) on a road-legal vehicle. There are limitations on location of the lights too.

Read more at Wikipedia.org