5 Tips to Shine Some Light on Driving at Night

>cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by Alan Cleaver

1. Check your Lights before driving at night.

Darkness is definitely not your friend – despite everything we’ve heard from Simon and Garfunkel. It’s very important to make sure that the headlight bulbs you are using to tear through that darkness is effective. Check all of your lights for clarity and proper functionality – head, tail, braking, turn, fog… the whole nine yards.  Slap on those hazards, get out and see if all your lights are flashing correctly. If you are without friend/human companion you can check to make sure your brake lights are working by backing up towards a reflective surface (building, window, etc.) and see if you can see your brake lights in the reflection. You may also consider getting your headlights properly aimed. Poorly aligned headlights can blind other drivers and limit your road visibility.  If you’ve had any damage to the front of your vehicle from a previous car accident, it could have taken one or both of your headlights out of alignment and it’s best to get that checked.  That’s something that the Runde’s Service Department can check for you very easily.

2. The only thing in front of your face should be the windshield.

You better not be checking out the score of the football game on that smartphone when you are driving at night … as if there weren’t enough distractions already on the road. How about we keep the amount of things that can get us into a wreck at a minimum, ok?

3. Use a tremendous amount of caution when driving at night.

Caution is definitely your friend here.  Reduce your speed, increase your awareness of objects around you and increase the distance between you and the vehicle in front of you. This will give you extra time to react if the vehicle in front of you does something unexpected.

4. Vision not what it used to be?

We all get older and things don’t function quite like they used to. Yeah, it stinks, but we must properly adjust our slowly diminishing features, such as vision, to adapt to night driving. If things are starting to become blurry or hard to see at night, go in for an eye exam. If  you already have glasses, you may consider adding an anti-glare coating to your lenses to reduce the amount of glare from lights. I know my first pair of glasses did not have the anti-glare and it was horrifying driving at night… It seemed like flying saucers were everywhere because the light would stretch out horizontally from the center of oncoming lights. I added anti-glare to my next pair of glasses – no more aliens.

5. Slow down.

When you’re driving at night through densely populated neighborhoods with lots of kids at night, drive slowly.   With visibility decreased at night, you never know what or who could be running out into the street chasing after a stray ball or frisbee.  I remember years ago when I lived down in Tallahasse, Florida, I would always drive down Duval Street every evening around 6pm to get to work and even though the speed limit was 35 mph, I usually drove around 45 to 50 because it was never really monitored by police.  It was a fairly busy street that went for about a mile or two with lots of houses on both sides and I never gave a 2nd thought about speeding to get to work until … one night around dusk I was speeding along as usual and I started to notice home-made signs posted in people’s yards.  I had to slow down to read them.  The signs said, “Slow down!  She was only FIVE.”  It’s years later and that still sticks in my mind whenever I drive through city neighborhoods.  It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

So please take our advice and use caution when driving at dusk.  There are many hazards that can quickly become pitfalls to someone driving too fast or not paying close enough attention to the road ahead.