I would lean towards water or wind on the bulb. But if some one hit you their insurance should fix the problem. It wasn't there before, hence insurace is a good thing, bring it to a shop and say "FIX IT"

 

Just a guess, but are the bulbs clean, they need to be cleaned with denatured alchol, I am going to guess this is known, but....they might have gotten dirty and that will cause them to fail. even fingerprints will cause problems. good luck.

 

dear god post is that electrical problem still kicking your rear end i hope you figure this one out.

 

I just did a Google search and the first link was a good one:
http://www.ertyu.org/~steven_nikkel/neon2004fsm.html

or try:
http://www.neons.org/faq/2kfaq/

Then you can sell it online, too. Geez I wish I looked before I bought one of those "cheap" 2.99$ manuals off of ebay.

 

Well, I put in the old side marker lamp assy. (original) and 2 days ago the problem mysteriously dissapeared. It seems like an intermittent short/bad ground somewhere in the car. I hope I can find it before it causes something else to go wrong. But I have low beams, for now. The car goes into the shop tomorrow, for some ongoing brake issues I have been having /and to fix it after the guy that clipped my front corner. I'll have my guy check it out and see if he can find anything.