CHAPTER 9 - Night Driving
The law is that headlights need to light up 300 feet or so ahead of you... GUESS WHERE? YES! In the center of the path ahead of you. And at 60 MPH, it takes a new driver almost 400 feet to stop under ideal conditions.
Re-read that paragraph. Anything odd about that?
Hmm.... So when you’re going 60 MPH down the highway, and 300 feet ahead of you your lights shine on a dead deer in the road, you need 400 feet to stop. The driving experts, who get paid to come up with names for various things, call this "over-driving your lights."
I call it, "being screwed."
The distance you can see ahead of you HAS to affect your speed!
Whether your visibility is reduced because of rain, a dirty windsheild, or because it’s night, NEVER drive at a speed if your stopping distance exceeds your visibility.
And how are you supposed to figure that out? The same way you figure anything else out. Practice. Now that you know to think about it, you’re already WAY ahead of most drivers.
Start out assuming that you CAN stop in the distance you can see, and then see if you can. Find an object - a mailbox, any object - and as soon as you can see it, try to stop. With very little practice, you’ll be able to judge it.
You know how when you first turn off the light in a room at night, you can’t see ANYTHING? And then after a while, You can see well enough to avoid tripping over everything?
That’s because the pupil in your eye will get bigger or smaller, depending on how much light it sees... the same way the lens on a camera does. The next time you turn out the light before you go to bed, look directly into the light for several seconds. Depending on your age, your health, and how tired you are, you’ll notice a significant increase in the time it takes your eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Gee, that’s funny. We can compare this to NIGHT DRIVING!
- NEVER look directly at a light while driving at night! It "tricks" your eyes into thinking it’s lighter than it is, and that significantly reduces your ability to see.
- Adjust your dashboard lights so they’re as dim as possible. The light from those also "tricks" your eyes.
- NEVER put on the interior lights while you’re driving! Obviously, for the same reason.
- If someone approaches you with their high beams on, give them a quick flash of your brights to remind them, slow down, and focus on the right hand side of the road way ahead of you. (Remember "aiming the car out of your peripheral vision?" Do NOT "leave your high beams on" to get even! THEN you have TWO semi-blinded drivers approaching each other at 50 MPH....
Other Interesting BS to Know About Night Driving:
Many, many, many years ago, on a planet far, far, away...
Oh! Sorry. Wrong movie.
Many, many, many years ago, when your Mom and Dad and I were YOUR age... we used to walk to school, five miles...
DAMN! WHERE WERE WE? OH, yeah, driving... back then, parking lights were WHITE. The reason they made them amber is because people would try to "save electricity" (??!!) by using them at dusk. Then it got dark, and those tiny white parking lights from 200 feet (that’s like 3 seconds at highway speeds) looked like headlights from 2000 feet.
Amber parking lights were a smart idea. They helped a LOT, but as of today, parking lights should NEVER be used by themselves. (Almost never - that’s a long story for another book.)
If you’re parked somewhere where people wouldn’t be expecting a parked car - which you should never be - then your 4-way flashers are the better option - WITHOUT any other lights. (Because the "flashing" will be more noticable without any other lights on.)
QUICK NOTE on the Rear-View Mirror Day/Night thing:
- Be careful to NOT use this until it’s totally dark!
- If you put the mirror on "NIGHT" and it’s only dusk, you won’t see a car unless he has headlights on, and lots of people screw that up.
