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About the legality of reverse lights and fog lights

1. Reversing lights

To warn adjacent vehicle operators and pedestrians of a vehicle's rearward motion, and to provide illumination to the rear when reversing, each vehicle must be equipped with one or two rear-mounted, rear-facing reversing (or "backup") lights.

Reversing lights are required to produce white light by America and international UN regulations.


2. Fog lights

In Europe and other countries adhering to UN Regulation 48, vehicles must be equipped with one or two bright red "rear fog lamps", which serve as high-intensity rear position lights to be activated in poor visibility conditions to make the vehicle more visible from the rear.

Rear fog lights are not required equipment in the North America, but they are permitted, and they are found almost exclusively on European-brand vehicles in North America.

Most jurisdictions permit rear fog lights to be installed either singly or in pairs. If a single rear fog is fitted, most jurisdictions require it to be located at or to the driver's side of the vehicle's centreline—whichever side is the prevailing driver's side in the country in which the vehicle is registered.This is to maximise the sight line of following drivers to the rear fog light. In many cases, a single reversing light is mounted on the passenger side of the vehicle, positionally symmetrical with the rear fog. If two rear fog lights are fitted, they must be symmetrical with respect to the vehicle's centreline.

To sum up, North America requires taillights to have at least one white reversing light, while fog lights are not mandatory. The European Union requires at least one white reversing light and at least one red fog light.

In order to meet the requirements of most countries, the VLAND taillights are equipped with one white reversing light and one red fog light on the early production taillights. On some newly launched taillights, it is equipped with two reversing lights and two fog lights (only a few products).

Reference sources:

  1.  "FMVSS No. 108: Lamps and Reflective Devices"
  2.  "UN Regulation 48"
  3. "J593: Backup Lamp (Reversing Lamp) - SAE International"
  4. "UN Regulation 23: Reversing Lamps"
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