night driving difficulties

exup

few tips that are handy for night driving.
- Make sure your screen is clean - as a dirty or scratched windscreen will scatter headlight beams making it difficult to see.
- Make sure that there is nothing inside your car, such as on the dashboard which could relect onto the inside of the screen, such as a piece of paper, as it will be worse if it reflects the light from oncoming headlights onto the inside of your windscreen.
- Don't let your gaze drift into the oncoming lights of vehicles, as lights can tend to draw your eye rowards them, especially if you are becoming fatigued.
- If you are in a rural area, and driving around a right hand bend, then you may be able to use full beam, as your beams will shine straight ahead, and won't dazzle oncoming users, this may help illuminate the edge of the road and help you judge how sharp it is, make sure the bend is tight enough for you to be able to do this though, but you should be able to judge where your beams are pointing - as long as they are not badly adjusted.
- If omcoming lights are dazzling you, perhaps because they are badly adjusted or they have forgotten to dip, then drop your gaze to the left side of the road, to where the verge meets the road, most of the time there will be a while line, or even cats eyes. If you are on an unmarked road, then be prepared to slow down if you can't judge the road due to being dazzled/
- Don't be pushed along by vehicles behind faster than your ability, everyone has different skill levels so if you feel your speed is getting to high, then ease off the throttle and slow down, go at your own pace.

nedmundo

Strider590 wrote: »

Absorption of what? which colour in the spectrum?
They're not sunglasses, they don't reduce the light the driver see's, they simply filter out blue light, which is the colour that causes glare from headlights etc. This has the side effect of increasing your reception of other light and increasing overall visibility.

Absorption of any visble wavelength. Obviously yellow tints absorb visible wavelengths, otherwise you wouldn't be able to see the tint in them;)

wba31

exup wrote: »

few tips that are handy for night driving.
- Make sure your screen is clean - as a dirty or scratched windscreen will scatter headlight beams making it difficult to see.
- Make sure that there is nothing inside your car, such as on the dashboard which could relect onto the inside of the screen, such as a piece of paper, as it will be worse if it reflects the light from oncoming headlights onto the inside of your windscreen.
- Don't let your gaze drift into the oncoming lights of vehicles, as lights can tend to draw your eye rowards them, especially if you are becoming fatigued.
- If you are in a rural area, and driving around a right hand bend, then you may be able to use full beam, as your beams will shine straight ahead, and won't dazzle oncoming users, this may help illuminate the edge of the road and help you judge how sharp it is, make sure the bend is tight enough for you to be able to do this though, but you should be able to judge where your beams are pointing - as long as they are not badly adjusted.
- If omcoming lights are dazzling you, perhaps because they are badly adjusted or they have forgotten to dip, then drop your gaze to the left side of the road, to where the verge meets the road, most of the time there will be a while line, or even cats eyes. If you are on an unmarked road, then be prepared to slow down if you can't judge the road due to being dazzled/
- Don't be pushed along by vehicles behind faster than your ability, everyone has different skill levels so if you feel your speed is getting to high, then ease off the throttle and slow down, go at your own pace.

If anyone driving in the opposite direction to me, regardless of a bend, has their main beam on, they will get the main beam and the horn back. it still dazzles, regardless of corner angle

Strider590

nedmundo wrote: »

Absorption of any visble wavelength. Obviously yellow tints absorb visible wavelengths, otherwise you wouldn't be able to see the tint in them;)

Again though it's blanket restriction, 1 rule for simpletons to understand... Simpletons who don't understand how light works, it's various colors and wavelengths. For example, my own parents would probably think that yellow lenses block yellow light, that's the way people think and it's very hard to put a rule in place if people don't understand the complexities of it.

Speeding.... Is it really dangerous to marginally exceed speed limits all the time? sure at 8am when the road is full of children walking to school, but what about 3 in the morning?

We could have a set of rules:

20 in adverse conditions
45 between 1am and 5am
30 at all other times

Seems reasonable, but alas far too complex for some people to understand. So what happens is the "judgement" and "common sense" of those who have it, is taken away and one single rule is applied.

Lum

Strider590 wrote: »

Speeding.... Is it really dangerous to marginally exceed speed limits all the time? sure at 8am when the road is full of children walking to school, but what about 3 in the morning?

We could have a set of rules:

20 in adverse conditions
45 between 1am and 5am
30 at all other times

Careful, if you make a post like that Gene_Hunt, master debater, will be along to debunk everything you stand for by saying your post is full of 5h1t and then the thread will be ruined.

Inactive

Strider590 wrote: »

Seems reasonable, but alas far too complex for some people to understand. So what happens is the "judgement" and "common sense" of those who have it, is taken away and one single rule is applied.

Which is ignored by many, it seems.

piratefairy

I have to agree with the OP here and say that I think that a lot of the headlights around recently have been brighter.
I have a v low car, on low-profile tyres, and seem to find myself at the height to be dazzled by headlights, either coming up behind me in the RvM, or from oncoming traffic.
I realise that the height of my vehicle is a factor, but I have regular eye tests as a matter of course, due to other health issues and medications, and I have never needed glasses or had any problems with my eyesight.
My windscreen is valet-cleaned inside and out at least once a wk, so I don't think that would be the problem.
I think that due to the number of newer cars on the road compared to recent yrs, lights are brighter, esp the xenon types which seem to have a certain glare to them.

I don't brake when approaching oncoming traffic, but I do a lot of night-driving in a relatively rural area, and a lot of drivers recently do seem to be over / misusing their fog lights, as well as forgetting to dip their headlights ;S

Strider590

^^ I'd rather overly bright lights than no lights at all, or worse the complete tards who drive about with only parking/side lights on!!!! :mad: :mad:

Lum

That's only acceptable in thick fog or if it's currently snowing.

In those circumstances I do it too, along with front fog lights as mine are yellow and flood the area, which gives much better visibility than either dipped or main beam.

I do remember to turn them off if there's someone coming the other way though.

piratefairy

I've also noticed a lot of people with one headlight out recently - i don't understand why you wouldn't check, even if you were stupid enough to not notice