Most of us are aware that night driving demands greater concentration and is more stressful than driving during daytime hours. While we make allowances for these more testing conditions it's a fact, nevertheless, that more road accidents occur at night than during the day.
All the more reason, then, that as a driver you should take vision care very seriously. Ask yourself: 'Can I really see as well as I would like?' Night driving might be highlighting the need for an eye examination.
Here's a quick self-test to show how far you can see at night. Find a suitable place to test yourself, and see if you can stop by the time you reach an object that falls within the range of your lights. This is a surprisingly difficult task to do with dipped headlights on an unlit road even if you have 20/20 vision. If you can't stop in time you should get an eye check.
Perhaps you're beginning to notice that things are getting a bit blurred when night driving. Of course, road lighting levels are lower than those during the day. This has the effect of dilating the pupil of the eye and allowing the maximum amount of light to fall on the retina at the back of the eye.
This increase in pupil size will highlight any smaller refractive errors you might have which remain unnoticed under normal lighting conditions. These minor focusing errors will result in blurred vision at night, however. If blurring becomes more noticeable, your glasses or contact lenses might need changing or perhaps an optical correction is required. Ask for advice from your eye doctor.
If you've had your lenses checked, but your eyes feel uncomfortable as you're noticing haloes and reflections round lights and headlights, the problem might well be lack of "vision care" of your auto. When night driving, your auto lights are the most important source of information both for you and for other road users.
The principal reason for haloes and reflections is a dirty windscreen, both inside as well as outside. They can also be indicative of eye disease, macular degeneration, for instance, or post-operative symptoms of corrective vision surgery. In these cases, however, it would be unwise to attempt any night driving. You might find ,anyway, have restrictions placed on your licensure.
What, besides a clean, condensation-free windscreen, makes for good vision care of your auto before night driving? The following are very important: