'Yellow' lights

[Slowdown]

I saw that Osram (and others, I guess) do 'All Season' bulbs with a yellow tint. This, apparently, cuts through rain/fog better.

Does anyone have any experience of this or is it just marketing speak? There's some discussion of it here, but it's somewhat subjective and doesn't mention any 'hard' facts, IFAICT

I'm tempted to fit them to my MicroDE's.

 

[Geordie Foote]

Yellow bulbs...

I know the whole of France used them for years until the EU banned them!!

They look good though, very distinctive.

 

[DavidHale]

I fitted a yellow cover to my bike headlamp a couple of years ago. Makes feck all difference to how it 'cuts through' mist or rain as far as I can tell. Then reason that I fitted it is that I spend a lot of time filtering through heavy traffic, and on those grey, dank, dull November mornings all you can see in your mirrors is a dazzle of white lights. In theory, having a yellow light is 'different' to the norm and may catch someones eye who may be about to move out on me . Does it work? I like to think so, but who knows?

Also, why did the French have yellow lights? I heard it started during WW2 so that the occupying Germans could spot local vehicles as opposed to their own. May be an urban myth, though.

 

[Slowdown]

Then reason that I fitted it is that I spend a lot of time filtering through heavy traffic, and on those grey, dank, dull November mornings all you can see in your mirrors is a dazzle of white lights. In theory, having a yellow light is 'different' to the norm and may catch someones eye who may be about to move out on me . Does it work? I like to think so, but who knows?

My kinda thinking too

'Great minds think alike' or 'Fools never differ'?

 

[turbine_2]

Okay, from personal experience with some science as well.
The problem with fog / haze is that it asborbs some of the light that is reflected back from an object (pretty obvious, but hang with me here), but also reflects light from the particulate matter that forms the fox/haze.
Water absorbs the lower frequency light more than the higher, so reds and yellows are absorbed more than blue (which is why when you go diving the deeper you go the bluer the surrounding looks). If you put a colur filter on the bulb what you're actually doing is reducing the blue light to begin with, so you're actually making things worse.
The other part of the problem is where that light is coming from. If your source of light is in close to a straight line (i.e. very accute angle between the source and the refleced light) then what you're actually going to get is mostly reflection back from the particulate matter, so there's less contast between the object you want to see and the surrounding haze, making it harder to see. So, for the best visibility what you want to be doing is moving the light souce to be 90 deg to the object (this is much easier to do on a diagram than in words). Sadly, this is rarely a practical option.
One of the things that pilots do (because they tend to have to look through haze at an angle) is to wear brown / yellow glasses. These do actually help (I can testify to this) and I used to know the reason why but as it has been so long since I've been flying I'm afraid I've forgotten.

 

[camel_landy]

Don't know about yellow but flashing blues will help cut through traffic quicker...

 

[~Stef~]

Ive got a Bosch all weather bulb fitted which has a yellowish tint, fitted it for the same reason as Mr Hale, so that I can be spotted at dusk/night in a sea of car headlights

 

[littleredrooster]

A mates car had them fitted. They give the impression of reducing the light output by 30% and look like a mouthful of bad teeth when coming towards you. Sh1te.