"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
newsp.0e18vcyvwdg98l@glass...
It's not dangerously close, I can see taillights easily in the fog. If I
can't, then I'm going so fast I'm going to run off the road anyway.

How close do you have to get before you can see the taillights of the car in
front? Fog lights allow you still to see the car at a much greater
distance - to allow for the normal 2-second rule plus an extra factor of
safety because of the fog. If I can see a car in front, I can judge how far
away it is and know how safe it is to drive; if I can't see a car, driving
is much more difficult because you have to rely on trying to see kerbs,
white lines, trees etc to work out where the bends are.

As for damage, when the front of a car hits the back of a car, the front
gets 10 times more damage (due to health and softy regulations). I have
in fact had nothing more than a chip of paint on the back of my car,
whereas the woman (it's always a woman) that rear ended me lost a
radiator, both headlights, the bumper, and the bonnet.

That's very true. The first time I was rear-ended, when I was lead car at a
roundabout and the car behind thought I was going to set off but I judged it
not to be safe, my tailgate was slightly bent (though I managed to tie it
shut with my tow rope) but the other car lost his radiator. That was back in
the early 90s; I bet health and softy rules make modern cars even more
liable to crumple that those of late 80s/early 90s vintage.