When you’re driving at night, it’s important to be able to stay safe. More accidents and collisions happen at night on the roads due to less light and lower visibility for drivers, making nighttime driving much more risky than driving during the day. To avoid a potentially stressful situation, it’s important to prioritize your safety on the road. At Admiral Driving School, our focus is on helping our students and community members drive safely so the roads are easier to navigate and accidents or collisions are reduced. Here are four tips from the driving instructors at Admiral Driving School to help you drive safely at night.
Night Driving Safety Tips
Clean Up Your View
It’s always important to have a clear, unobstructed view of the road, but at night, that is doubly important. Be sure that your car’s windshield is clean and free of chips, bug spots, and other grime, and make sure that you have wiper fluid in your car in case of inclement weather or other potential visual obstructions. Another great way to ensure that you have a full range of visibility while on the road is to eliminate obstructions. Take anything hanging on your rearview mirror down while driving at night, and be sure that there’s nothing on your dashboard that could potentially block part of the road, too.
Test And Use Your Lights
Before you get on the road at night, it’s important to make sure that your lights are working properly so you have illumination while driving. Your lights are always an important part of driving, not just for your own visibility, but also so other drivers on the road can see where you are on the road, too. Regardless of whether you’re driving on well-lit city streets or a dark side road, using your headlights and turn signals at all times is highly important. Testing your lights before you drive is simple, just take a moment after you’ve started your car to double-check that your lights are on and bright enough to see, and quickly test your turn signals and brake lights to ensure that everything responds properly.
Reduce Your Speed
When driving at night, it’s likely that you’re tired and looking forward to getting to your destination. However, it’s important that you do not speed while on the road at night because of those two factors. When you’re tired, your reaction time is slower than when you are alert and well-rested, meaning that you are less able to react appropriately if you come across a dangerous or compromising situation. Instead, it’s better to slow down while you’re driving and make sure that you’re giving yourself adequate time to react, should anything unexpected happen while you’re on the road. In addition, reducing your speed when driving at night helps to ensure that other drivers around you, who may also be tired, have adequate time to see you and safely navigate around you.
Stay Away From Distractions
One of the most important ways to stay safe while driving, in general, is to reduce and remove distractions while you’re on the road. At night, this is so much more important than during the day because of lowered visibility and potentially slower reaction times due to tiredness at the end of the day. Be sure to silence your cell phone, or turn on ‘driving mode’ if your phone has that capability so your focus is not pulled away from the road by notifications. Be sure to turn your radio or other music to an appropriate volume so that you can hear anything on the road around you, and ask any passengers in the car to minimize any actions or conversations that pull your focus, too.
Helping our students learn how to drive safely is a top priority for Admiral Driving School! Learn more about our courses and read more about driving safety on our blog today!