Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: bbhero
Well my 35 watt HIDs are 3000 lumens.. I may well be wrong but I rather doubt 55w halogen lights would do more than that. Hmmm... Is interesting though. I'm going to look up my fog lights and see what the wattage is on them. My fog lights are set for 55 watt halogen too. They are rated for 1350 lumens. So there is the difference between the 35w HID and 55w halogen fog lights.
So my speculative concern is that while road materials seem to primarily absorb light, rather than reflect it (this can be confirmed by the reflects nice and material luminance values found at sources such as this:
http://www.secement.org/PDFs/SN2458.pdf), but all the same, a low-lying beam, aimed downward, might create a decent reflection off the ground which could bounce in undesirable locations. While high and low beams are meant to project outward at some set of relative angles and beam layout such that the foreground and long distance are properly and safely illuminated, fogs may not be as well constrained, and so putting more than double the lumens from a fog light might really do something bad.
I'm not as concerned about the local higher illumination making your eyes less sensitive to the long distance issues - while I get the theory, poor illumination nearby enables consistent threats of local items that are tougher to see due to total local illumination. Fogs might just give a dangerous bounce that creates a worse angle of incoming light than a headlight would...
what do you mean by "undesireable locations"? do you mean for other drivers?
All I know is, that when you have a decent set of fogs, they really many snowy/reainy and foggy conditions MUCH easier to see through. I have noticed this first hand with the yellow H11 55w bulbs I'm currently running. No longer do I have that "white screen" where the highs and lows are projected at a place somewhere in front of my windshield that I cannot see through. instead I have NO reflective screen and things are highlighted in yellow...a color that's easier to see through as well as easier on other drivers' eyes, should they get an eyeful of it.