Night driving survey

It's dangerous because it's dark...

By PH Staff / Wednesday, 19 October 2005 / Loading comments

Driving in the dark

You might think inight driving is more hazardous because it's dark. But road safety group Roadsafe can see more than that and has just released a missive explaining why night driving is more hazardous, so here's the gist of it.

In the UK, about 25 per cent of all fatal crashes occur between 16.00 and 21.00, most of them in the winter months.

German road safety research has shown that while 75 per cent of all driving is done during daylight hours, over half of all fatal accidents happen when it's dark. Similar accident figures have been found in US studies showing that about half of serious accidents happen because the driver didn't have enough information about the road ahead to take avoiding action.

Explaining the added dangers of night driving, RoadSafe’s director Adrian Walsh said: "Ninety per cent of a driver's reaction depends on vision, and vision is severely limited at night. Even on well-lit roads, depth perception, colour recognition, and peripheral vision are compromised after sunset."

In other words, you can't see as well in the dark.

As a result, Roadsafe goes on to say that the risk of death in the case of a crash is three times higher for night driving than for clear visibility conditions.

When a driver encounters a hazard on the road, the driver will go through five steps before stopping the vehicle:

Perception of the hazard, under poor visibility conditions
Identifying the hazard under poor lighting conditions
Considering the alternatives available, and deciding what action to take
Reaction time - mental plus muscular
Braking

Research has shown that a driver travelling at 40 miles per hour with dipped lights has as little as 1.5 seconds to react to a hazard on the road. This rises to a three seconds on beams.

A wet road requires even greater distances. Fifty per cent of all reported road traffic accidents at night occur in wet conditions. In the UK, it is wet on average only 10 per cent of the nights.

More information available at: www.drivealive.org.za/DriveAlive/WebSite/NightDriving.asp

You just take care now, y'hear?