Night Driving

Blondie919

I haven't done much night driving throughout my driving life but I would still consider myself to be competent and have the skills and more importantly, the knowledge of certain rules of driving at night.

I learnt from watching my dad about using headlights and dims, and the ways in which you can tell when a vehicle is oncoming, such as seeing the reflection of lights well in advance on the overhead telephone wires. Or flicking the dims when coming up to a junction. I also learnt from others and through my own experience about having dims on when travelling behind other drivers. I don't know if this is an actual rule or an unwritten one, but if you can see the rear lights of the car in front of you then you should have your dims on, no matter how far ahead of you they are.

But throughout the month of July I did a lot of driving at night due to getting a night shift job. I was on the roads between 11pm and 12am and for one week between 1am and 2am. Now, I have to say, there are a lot of drivers out there who really should not be let drive at night! I mean, the correct use of headlights and dims should be common knowledge and should be done correctly. Instead, there were numerous instances of oncoming traffic keeping
full beams on even when I've obviously dimmed mine. This pisses me off no end! And then there were the ones who didn't dim when I overtake them. What kind of idiot do you have to be to not realise that you need to dim so as not to blind those in front of you?

Night driving really is a different experience to daylight driving. I've been wondering would having driving at night being a part of the driving test? Would it work and how would it work? Would it even help standards? It should shouldn't it? I know that there is a section of it covered in the EDT but there is still a lot of drivers out there who really don't have a clue.

So I guess I'm asking do you think it would be a good idea to have some practical aspect of night driving done during the driving test? And if so how could it be done? Maybe through simulation or a small test as part of the EDT? If this was workable it should in theory train new drivers but what about the countless drivers who have years of driving experience but little experience of night driving? How do we change their thinking and habits?

Peanut2011

Blondie919 wrote: »

So I guess I'm asking do you think it would be a good idea to have some practical aspect of night driving done during the driving test? And if so how could it be done?

The problem with the test and the actual driving you come up is not just highlighted on this issue. It is same with motorway driving, dual carriageways and in general lack of enforcement against bad driving.

How many micra drivers do you see using their fog front lights during the day or night instead of their main beam (micra just as an example)? These fog lights do not have correct focus and do give too much of the glare to oncoming traffic.

How many have their back fog lights on, which is especially bad during rainy days as the glare is just too much.

Many times I tried getting the drivers attention to get the lights sorted and they look at you blankly not having a clue what you are on about.

I am not proud to admit but I did stop dead on a road a couple of times and got out of the car, walked back to the car following and shouted yards about the high beams! Seemed to get the point across those few times! But I would not advocate that as you are exposing yourself to traffic danger!

The only way to deal with that is to have the police force that is out there to enforce the rules of the road and if people knew they would be stopped for incorrect light usage, or missing bulbs, or tailgating or using the wrong lane, than they would think twice.

Anything apart from that just disappears through the years!

underwaterdog

Wait till you hit fog at night. It doesn't matter how well you know the road it still disorientates you.