Weather & Night Driving

Driving in fog in the UAE: what to do

In fog, use dipped headlights and keep well back from the vehicle in front. Do not use full beam, and do not switch on your hazard lights while you are moving. Those three things account for most of what the theory test asks about fog, and for most of what goes wrong on the road.

Early morning fog is a frequent risk on major highways here, and it produces a particular kind of accident: vehicles crashing into one another nose to tail, often with serious injury or loss of life. Almost all of it is avoidable.

Lights

Dipped headlights are correct. Full beam is not: the light reflects back off the water droplets and reduces what you can see rather than improving it. Fog lights may be used instead of dipped headlights in fog or heavy rain, and the two may be used together.

If your car has high-intensity rear fog lights, use them only when visibility is seriously reduced. Left on in clear conditions they dazzle the driver behind you and can mask your brake lights, which is the opposite of what you want.

Speed and distance

Fog makes it much harder to judge both distance and speed, because the outlines you normally rely on become confusing. Your ability to anticipate, the thing that keeps you out of trouble, is exactly what fog takes away.

So slow down and increase your gap. If visibility drops far enough that you cannot stop within what you can see, stop the vehicle safely rather than pressing on.

Staying in your lane

There is a natural tendency to drift towards the middle of the road as visibility worsens. Resist it. Use the right-hand edge of the road as your guide: it keeps you clear of oncoming traffic and away from oncoming headlights, which are dazzling in fog.

Never navigate by the tail lights of the vehicle ahead. It feels reassuring and it is how chain collisions form. You inherit that driver’s mistakes, at their timing rather than yours.

If you break down

Get the vehicle off the road if you possibly can. Inform the police, and arrange to have it removed promptly if it is causing an obstruction. Never leave it on the wrong side of the road, and never leave it unlit. Hazard lights and advance warning triangles exist precisely for this.

If you have to park where you should not, leave your parking or sidelights on so the vehicle can be seen.

Rain, which is not the same thing

Rain is uncommon in the Gulf and consequently more dangerous when it comes. Light rain lifts the dirt on the road surface and turns it into something close to a skid pan, offering very little grip. Less grip means a longer stopping distance, so the following distance you are used to is no longer enough.

The hazard-light rule is worth restating here, because it is where most people break it: hazard lights must not be used while driving in heavy rain. A significant share of wet-weather collisions involve drivers who switched them on and treated that as permission to keep going fast.

What the test asks

  • Which lights to use in fog. Dipped headlights, with fog lights permitted instead of or alongside them.
  • That full beam makes fog worse, not better.
  • That hazard lights are for emergencies, not for moving in poor visibility.
  • That you increase your following distance and reduce speed.
  • Which edge of the road to use as a guide: the right.

The hazard-light question is the one most people get wrong, because switching them on in bad weather feels responsible. It is not: it removes your ability to signal, at exactly the moment other drivers most need to know what you are about to do.

Practise this

Reading is not the same as recall under a clock. Sit a full 45-question mock and see whether weather & night driving comes out as a strong area, or try five questions first.

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