Learn How Night Driving Increases The Risk of Car Accidents
Learn How Night Driving Increases The Risk of Car Accidents
According to the National Safety Council, you are three times more likely to have a fatal crash due to night driving. Almost 50% of of traffic deaths occur at night. Familiarity of the road does not decrease your chances of an accident at night. More than 40,000 people are killed in crashes at night. So before you head out to drive at night, think carefully about that. Be cautious, be alert and awake and if you are tired or sleepy, pull over.
The Reasons Why Night Driving is Dangerous
There are many obvious and non obvious reasons why night driving is dangerous. The dark significantly affects depth perception, color recognition and vision all together. Yes, cars are equipped to be driven at night as well. You have high-bean highlights, and various other features. However, lights have limitation on visibility. They can only cover up to 500 feet. This leads to less time for you to react to things on the road if they are outside the visibility range.
Decreased Vision during The Night
Biologically speaking, your eyes react differently at night. Night driving makes it difficult for you to focus on objects. Furthermore, traveling between lit and dark roads creates vision problems. All of this gives you less time to react to road situations. Despite your strong lights, you may not see other vehicles, pedestrians, road signs, pets, etc. This is especially dangerous if you are driving at high speeds. Driving with high speeds while your vision is impaired is the recipe for disaster. Some people are very comfortable driving at night. They tend to over drive their headlights. This means, in the instance that a situation occurs, it is too late for them to stop. So do not drive fast at night.
Naturally, our vision decreases as we age. That is why we advise against seniors driving at night. In fact, we recommend minimizing driving when it is dark at all ages. But especially for older people, this can be very devastating.
The Correlation between Fatigue and Night Driving
There is a strong positive correlation between night driving and feeling fatigue. Night time is meant for sleeping. The darkness pushes your eyes to shut, your mind to relax and your body to be less tense. For that reason, we all feel tired at night and desire to rest and sleep. Driving with fatigue leads to drowsy driving. And drowsy driving is as bad as driving under the influence of alcohol. There are more than 100,000 accidents caused by tired drivers. The majority of Americans drive at night. And surveys report a shocking number of adults admitting to driving while tired. To avoid fatal crashes, do not drive when tired. If you caught yourself driving drowsy, pull over. If there is someone with you, have them drive instead of you. Otherwise, take a nap until you feel better.
Safety Tips to follow when you are driving at night
Because of the dangers associated with driving at night, we recommend minimizing late driving as much as you can. But if you have to do that, follow these tips to stay safe:
- Make sure your headlights are clean and working
- Aim your headlights correctly
- Do not look into oncoming lights, you must instead look away
- Use anti reflective lenses if you wear glasses
- Make sure your windshield is clean
- Do not drive fast
- Understand that despite the effectiveness of headlights, visibility is limited.
- Stay awake, alert and aware of your surroundings.
California Nighttime Accident Injury Lawyer Representation
If you have been injured on the roadway at night, seek accident injury lawyer help. The unique circumstances of your accident need to be evaluated to determine how much you can recover. Having an accident injury lawyer review the case of nighttime auto accident is imperative. Do not delay, get a free consultation with Napolin today.
- California DUI Accidents and The Laws Involved - April 25, 2024
- Essential Advice to Protect Your Workers’ Compensation Claim in California - April 25, 2024
- Fighting Age Discrimination in the California Workplace - April 25, 2024