# Ask Car Talk column about fog lights

**URL:** <https://community.cartalk.com/t/ask-car-talk-column-about-fog-lights/163400>\
**Category:** The Show\
**Created:** [April 25, 2020, 10:56pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/ask-car-talk-column-about-fog-lights/163400 "2020-04-25T22:56:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![JoeHuber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce73a5/32.png) [@JoeHuber](https://community.cartalk.com/u/JoeHuber)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2020, 10:56pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/ask-car-talk-column-about-fog-lights/163400/1 "2020-04-25T22:56:46Z")

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I just read your 10 paragraph answer to Ross’s question about fog lights. You failed to tell him that when you are driving in the fog, put on your polarized sun glasses. They block out the reflected light rays, and let you see through the fog.  
Joe

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**Author:** ![cdaquila](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/cdaquila/32/18089_2.png) [@cdaquila](https://community.cartalk.com/u/cdaquila)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 2:06am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/ask-car-talk-column-about-fog-lights/163400/2 "2020-04-26T02:06:26Z")

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This is the column Joe is referring to:

> **[Fog Doesn't Play Favorites with Headlight Color](https://www.cartalk.com/blogs/dear-car-talk/fog-doesnt-play-favorites-headlight-color)**
>
> Ray sheds some light on what helps in foggy weather

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**Author:** ![ken2116](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f19dbf/32.png) [@ken2116](https://community.cartalk.com/u/ken2116)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2020, 3:41am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/ask-car-talk-column-about-fog-lights/163400/3 "2020-04-26T03:41:10Z")

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The old reasoning may have been that shorter wavelengths, the bluer components of white light, are scattered more broadly by tiny fog droplets and back into the eyes of the car’s driver than are longer wavelengths, like yellow. However a lot depends on the size of fog droplets - if they were on the scale of blue wavelengths (blue ~470nm, yellow light is longer at ~ 580nm) this might hold true, but “Dr. www” puts finer fog droplets in the 10um range, about 20x larger, so relatively small percentage differences in wavelength may not matter that much. Any other ideas?