Another insurer on the publicity trail again, but Swiftcover reckons that keeping your fog lights on when they aren’t needed (i.e. almost every male driver under the age of 30) leads to “as many as 300,000” accidents and 2,000,000 near misses per annum.
The full press release includes the following figures:
- fog lights caused 300.000 accidents in 2011
- 2m near misses in the same period
- 20% of young drivers leave lights on “because it looks good”
On that last one… I told you so!
Other excuses were that their normal lights weren’t bright enough (but obviously, brighter than they were), and to improve visibility on poorly lit roads. Those under 34 years were most likely to have left lights on “because it looked good” (look, I told you, didn’t I?)
Someone really needs to get it across to them: they don’t look cool with fog lights on. They look like what they are – total prats.
Mind you, I’m not quite sure how Swiftcover can attribute so many accidents just to fog lights. Just as many people driver around with only one light working (so you think there’s a motorbike coming at you), and that’s far more dangerous than fog lights being on.