Selective Yellow

Selective Yellow Fog Lights

Selective Yellow (light yellow) is a yellowish color standard for vehicle lighting . It is defined in the same way in the European ECE regulation No. 19 and the North American SAE J583, each referring to a special color for fog lights .

Applications

The intention of yellowish headlights is to soften the blue and violet light components, which are mainly responsible for glare effects in rain, fog and snowfall. With Selective Yellow an improvement of around 15% can be achieved. On the other hand, there is a color falsification that hinders the recognizability of objects.

In the more recent ECE regulation No. 48, the permissibility of yellowish light for new vehicles (except for fog lights) has therefore been removed - but older vehicles can continue to use the lighting that has already been installed. In some non-European countries, however, reinstalling Selective Yellow on headlights is still permitted, for example in Japan and New Zealand. Historically, yellow headlights including yellow daytime running lights were particularly found in Sweden to make vehicles stand out better in the twilight of winter. In France, yellowish light was even mandatory until 1993, not just for fog lights, but for all front lighting.

Since yellowish lighting was not permitted in German-speaking countries, no independent German term for the R19 fog light yellow has emerged; the direct translation of “Selective Yellow” as “Selective Yellow” can only be found in footnotes. In technical terms, a distinction was made between white, selective yellow and amber for the front lighting. No separate name has been introduced in the German translations of the Federal Ministry of Transport in Germany - with ECE regulation 19 (fog lights) in section 7 "color" the English "white or selective yellow" is translated as "white or light yellow", with ECE regulation 48 ( Lighting / light signaling devices for vehicles) the following technical definition is given in section 2.29.2 "light yellow" (between 2.29.1 "white" and 2.29.3 "orange"). In the Road Traffic Licensing Regulations, Section 52, Paragraph 1, reference is made to it as “multi-lane vehicles may be equipped with two fog lights for white or light yellow light”.

Technical definition

The ECE regulation has defined selective yellow in the CIE standard color system. The basic formula is used

Red intensity	${\displaystyle y\geq 0,138+0,580x}$
Intensity green	${\displaystyle y\leq 1,290x-0,100}$
Brightness (white value)	${\displaystyle y\geq 0,966-x}$
Hue (spectral color)	${\displaystyle y\leq 0,992-x}$

The range is expanded to include fog lights

brightness	${\displaystyle y\geq 0,940-x}$
	${\displaystyle y\geq 0,440}$

This hue is outside the RGB color space and cannot be reproduced exactly on the web. With lower saturation, the hue is # FFBA00, compared to the images, real diffusers are closer to the white point D65 .

Illustrations

• 

  Retrofit kit for yellow daytime running lights in Sweden in the 1970s

• 

  Illumination of a garage door with yellow fog lights

• 

  Porsche 911 with complete front lighting in fog light yellow

Individual evidence

1. ↑ UNECE Vehicle Regulations - 1958 Agreement . UNECE - United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
2. ↑ Agreement concerning the adoption of uniform technical prescriptions for wheeled vehicles, equipment and parts which can be fitted and / or be used on wheeled vehicles and the conditions for reciprocal recognition of approvals granted on the basis of these prescriptions: Uniform provisions concerning the approval of power-driven vehicle front fog lamps (PDF; 560 kB) UNECE - United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Section 7: Color. December 12, 2011. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
3. ↑ SAE Standard J583: Front Fog Lamp . Retrieved October 19, 2013.
4. ↑ Driving in Snow: Effect of Headlamp Color at Mesopic and Photopic Light Levels (PDF; 115 kB) SAE Technical Paper Series. 2001. Archived from the original on February 23, 2006. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 27, 2010. 
5. ↑ Devaux, P .: State-of-the-Art Signaling and Lighting (SAE 700386) . Society of Automotive Engineers. 1970. Retrieved May 21, 2012.
6. ↑ Japanese Industrial Standard JIS D-5500 ( Memento of the original from August 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Automobile Parts - Lighting and Light Signaling Devices p. 5, sec. 4.4.2, table # 4. 
7. ^ New Zealand Vehicle Inspection Requirement Manual p. 4.1.2 .
8. ^ Daniel J. Stern: What is Selective-Yellow Light? (PDF; 69 kB) (No longer available online.) July 2009, archived from the original on September 27, 2007 ; accessed on October 5, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
9. ↑ A direct translation as "selective yellow" conveys no meaning, while English "selective" occurs for selected / selective in many compositions. According to the origin of the definition, only “fog light yellow” is suitable, which has already been used colloquially.
10. ↑ Recognizability of motorcycles during the day - investigations into the front signal image . Reports of the Federal Highway Research Institute, F series: Vehicle technology. Retrieved on October 19, 2013: "Daytime running lights in white, selective yellow and amber"
11. ↑ Regulation No. 19 of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN / ECE) - Uniform Conditions for the Approval of Fog Lights for Motor Vehicles ( Memento of the original from May 15, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Official Journal of the European Union, July 10, 2010. 
12. ↑ Regulation No. 48 of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN / ECE) - Uniform conditions for the approval of vehicles with regard to the installation of lighting and light signaling devices ( Memento of the original from October 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was used automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Official Journal of the European Union, December 6, 2011. 

Web links

Commons : Selective yellow headlamps  - collection of images, videos and audio files