Night Driving Tips

Night driving has two essential prerequisites:

• good lighting equipment; and
• a spotlessly clean window.

Make sure you have both before attempting to drive at night. Compared with daylight driving, visibility at night is extremely limited. Even with the best street lighting combined with the most efficient headlights your ability to see at night is very much reduced. Poor street lighting produces conditions which call for the utmost care. Isolated patches of light against a black background place a great strain on the eyes, which are constantly trying to adjust themselves to the changing light conditions. In these circumstances reduced speed is called for and a very careful lookout must be kept for both pedestrians and cyclists. Where there is no street lighting, driving is usually easier because the headlights give a constant amount of light which the eyes get accustomed to. Normally, high-beam should be used, but you must change to low-beam when facing oncoming traffic and when closely following behind other traffic.

Dazzle is sometimes a problem, and a dirty windscreen accentuates this. If the light of an approaching vehicle dazzles you, slow down and avoid looking directly at them. Concentrate on looking at the edge of the road until the offending headlights have passed.