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March 20, 2021

Dim your Head Lights

When you are driving your vehicles on road, you are actually sharing the road with others. That makes you responsible for the safety and comfort of every other person on road. Sometimes the mistake of a single driver can cause a series of collisions and large scale accident. In India the accident rate at night is larger than the accident rate during day time. That is because 90% of a drivers reaction depends on vision, and vision will be badly interfered at night. To be more scientific, the purpose of our eyes is not just to see things. It also involves Depth perception, color recognition, and peripheral vision. At nigh the capacity of our eyes to carry out these functions are limited. Also it is more difficult to judge other vehicles’ speeds and distances at night. So that increases the driver’s reaction time and thus leads to accidents.

All these things can limit the driver’s visibility at night. But the biggest trouble maker is a habit of drivers which can blind the fellow driver for a reasonable time, which is turning on high beam head light. The high beam and low beam options are available in every vehicle which can be used according to the conditions. When there are no street lights on the road or when the road is empty for a long distance drivers use the high beam. But there should be a consideration from them when another vehicle comes in front of them. Because facing a high beam head light can blind the driver for a short time. But that is enough for a collision or drive off from an edge.

So take a small step for a big change. The following are some simple things you can do when you are driving at night which can help to avoid accidents. • When following another vehicle, keep your low-beams on to avoid blinding the driver ahead of you. • If you are driving with your high-beam lights on, you must dim them at least 150m from any oncoming vehicle, so you don’t blind the oncoming driver. • You must use low-beam lights if you are within 50m of the vehicle you are following. • Do not try retaliating against the other driver by keeping your high-beam lights on. If you do, both of you may be blinded. Make these your habit while driving at night and let’s built a gentle road culture.

Bonus point: If an approaching car is using its high-beams, don’t look directly into the oncoming headlights—look toward the left edge of your road. Watch the oncoming car out of the corner of your eye.