Opposite Lock.(new Mini)(Column)

Byline: Kevin A. Wilson

Sometimes, I'm tempted to cheer for the wrong side. Consider the handful of American Mini owners complaining that the car's rear fog lamp is disabled. It's built into the taillight assembly, but cars sold in the States don't have switches to turn it on. The switch appears in sales literature but the dashboard space is empty and Mini USA dealers can't add it. Brilliant, or rather, not. So, a few owners launched an online petition seeking to have Mini USA offer the switch at owner expense.

On one hand, I admire their spunk (even as I wonder what happened to car guys who could install their own switches). On the other hand, have you driven behind a lout lately? I mean those folks driving around with rear fog lamps turned on all the time. Why? Because they're there and if you don't understand, you might as well use 'em.

Mini's ``Let's Motor'' marketing types probably envisioned a nightmare of similarly unenlightened but light-empowered owners driving around shining offensively bright beams and generating ill will. Those who use them inappropriately probably figure it's just defensive driving, making sure people see you, like daytime running lights. Yet, a rear fog lamp designed to glow through auto- bahn murk at speed in the Black Forest, or through Scottish Highland mists (depending on whether you think a BMW Mini is German or British), is the equivalent, on a clear, fogless American suburban evening, of leaving your high beams on in traffic. It's boorish at best, and potentially dangerous. It will impair the ...