FACTS
- Severely Reduced Visibility: Fog compresses your sight distance, making it hard to judge speed, distances, and the movement of other vehicles.
- Sudden Visibility Drops: Fog can thicken without warning, causing an immediate loss of reference points like lane lines, road edges, or signs.
- Optical Illusions: Drivers often experience “white-out” or “wall of gray” effects in dense fog, distorting depth perception and increasing confusion.
- Glare Amplification: Low-beam headlights, taillights, and even streetlights can create intense glare in fog, making it harder to see the road.
- Lane Drifting: Poor visibility increases the risk of unintentionally drifting across lane markings or onto the shoulder.
- Piled-Up Moisture: Fog leaves moisture on windshields and mirrors, reducing clarity and requiring constant wiper and defogger use.
- Overconfidence Hazard: Drivers may continue at unsafe speeds because fog appears patchy, leading to high-speed collisions when entering denser sections.
STATS
- In the US, fog-related crashes average over 25,000 annually, resulting in more than 400 deaths and nearly 9,000 injuries, with similar patterns holding steady through 2024.
- Adverse weather, including fog, contributed to 18% of fatal motor vehicle accidents in Canada in recent years (2020-2023 data).
- Fog accounts for 3% of weather-related crashes in the US (2020-2025), part of the 21% of all crashes occurring under adverse atmospheric conditions like fog or smoke.
- In Canada, decreased visibility from fog and inclement weather was a factor in 18% of passenger vehicle fatalities in 2019-2021, with trends persisting into 2024.
- US fog-related incidents involve over 38,700 vehicles annually (2020-2024 average), leading to more than 600 deaths due to reduced visibility and high speeds.
- In Canada, environmental factors like fog contributed to 18% of all fatal collisions in 2023, exacerbating risks in low-lying and coastal areas.