Yellow vs. White Fog Lights: Which Do You Prefer for Winter Driving?

[LASFIT]

Winter is here, and with it comes foggy mornings, rainy nights, and snowy drives that challenge visibility. When it comes to cutting through these tough conditions, fog lights can make a big difference. But here’s a question that sparks debate: Do you prefer yellow or white fog lights?

Yellow fog lights are known for reducing glare and improving contrast in dense fog, heavy rain, or snow, while white fog lights are brighter and more modern-looking. So, which color do you feel gives you the best visibility and sense of safety when winter weather hits?

Share your experiences and opinions—what’s worked best for you, and why? Let’s get a conversation going to see which color reigns supreme this winter!

 

[MaicoDoug]

Yellow light as compared to white. Well, I once had a yellow visor on my old (first) motorcycle. Weird to see through. >>Scientifically speaking the yellow source light has less built in contrast keeping your retina open more as compared to the typical composite white source light. In layman's terms, the yellow color is supposed to seem less "bright" overall as compared to white if that makes any sense. Good question. Same as those sunglasses called "blue blockers", the red transmission is easier to focus and look at without the smaller frequencies to overburden the eyes with such as green-blue spectra.

Sodium spectra-lights (yellow) used to be popular however drove the security folks crazy with their china junk cameras, so then we all had to have white light to see with.

 

[Curious Hound]

I like yellow foot fog lights or nighttime enhanced lighting. They seem to pick up details on the road better, better contrast. I use the yellow lights I added on my motorcycle much more than the white fogs that came with it.

 

[superj]

I have ner had yellow lights, other than the stock jeep headlights on the old jeeps, so i cannot answer

 

[MaicoDoug]

Oh I thought you all were talking about the half charged battery look, going around with the yellow "it ain't going to start again" headlights......

 

[bobbywalter]

i need to try this. i cant see very well anymore at night. so maybe yellow might offer an advantage.

 

[racsan]

Ive only ever had white myself.

 

[MaicoDoug]

Tungsten spectra is a nice & easy light to see with. My projector buckets actually came with halogen filled light bulbs. So far they have lasted. Looks funny to see my Ranger at night, White LED (Lasfit) driving lights and the plain 'ole warm white light bulb headlights. But they still work. I remember seeing folks with yellow lights driving on the 101 in the fog. Pea soup fog. I remember up in the coastal mountains rolling down the window to look out & down to find the white stripe keeping the '83 Ranger on the road.

 

[Curious Hound]

Pea soup fog. I remember up in the coastal mountains rolling down the window to look out & down to find the white stripe keeping the '83 Ranger on the road.

I’ve had to do that on the Blue Ridge Parkway. But that was many years ago in my 88 F150.

 

[Roert42]

The couple times I turned on my fog lights due to fog, rain, or snow I wasn’t able to notice a difference.

Both vehicles I’ve had fog lights in were factory white instead of yellow, so probably not any advantage over regular headlights.

If I can see more then 20ft past the hood there’s no real reason to turn them on anyway.

 

[Curious Hound]

The couple times I turned on my fog lights due to fog, rain, or snow I wasn’t able to notice a difference.

Both vehicles I’ve had fog lights in were factory white instead of yellow, so probably not any advantage over regular headlights.

If I can see more then 20ft past the hood there’s no real reason to turn them on anyway.

Part of the key to fog lights is mounting location. They should be as low as possible. That way their lights cuts under the fog instead of hitting it at a higher level and just reflecting back into your eyes to blind you.

 

[Roert42]

Part of the key to fog lights is mounting location. They should be as low as possible. That way their lights cuts under the fog instead of hitting it at a higher level and just reflecting back into your eyes to blind you.

Both vehicles I’ve had with fog lights were factory. My ‘11 Ranger has them on the bottom of the bumper/ valance do dad.
Had an ‘01 Monte Carlo SS with a very similar location.