Night driving on single lane highways

[ad75]

Hi all,

am a newbie.have been going thru the posts as a guest for long,thought its time to share & ofcourse take some help form the experts in this forum

have been doing alot of highway travel.one strange thing which i have found with the trucks/commercial vehicles(who care a damn about the rules ) in most parts of the country is that these these guys will always be on high beam & would shift to low beam when they are abt 200-300 mtrs from you but when they are near you say abt 25-50mtrs they whould shift to high beam which blinds your vision & i had a bent rim due to this during my recent trip as i hit a stone on the left which I couldnt see. any views?? how to handle this safely?? can the experts help

[chanapli]

Get a pair of Hella 4000, focus left one to side of the road, other reserve for non - dimmers. And 100/90 for regular head lamps.

[iraghava]

Chanapli - I think you made the point with one post only!

AD - You should learn to see a bit further & anticipate in night driving under our conditions. Trucks/Buses will almost always blind you so be prepared from your side. As you drive more & more there will be a time when the glare will not blind/irritate you anymore, you just have to wait till the time your eyes get used to the glare.

Even if you mount the Hella's the resulting glare will only mean the truckers will glare you even more so it's not a viable solution.

[drifter]

Here's the reason why truckers do that.

When your car passes by the truck, there is sudden loss of light since your headlights have already passed them, this loss temporarily hampers their vision as the eyes take a bit to adjust to new light levels, switching over to high beams helps them to limit the visibility problems.

Drifter

[rahul_intlad]

OT: Guys have a look at this invention

Anti-glare shield for the front windshield of cars

United States Patent 4874195

According to my research[author's] nearly all the glare problems produced by on-coming cars can be solved by using an anti-glare glass as small as an adult's fist with approximately only 4% transmittance to visible light. It is suspended transversely on a transparent frame secured to the ceiling by a support brace, on which there is a universal joint at each end, just above the windshield in front of driver's seat. The anti-glare glass each time will slide down automatically about 10 cm on the suspension frame by rotating a DC motor when a photocell is activated by an on-coming glare and will retract up automatically by the above-mentioned motor when the glare is gone.

Source:
Anti-glare shield for the front windshield of cars - Patent 4874195

[autozealot]

Originally Posted by ad75

how to handle this safely??

Hi. Though powerful bulbs will help to an extent, it all depends on ur judgement & anticipation as Iraghava said.
Concentrate on the shoulder of the road on your left & avoid seeing straight into the oppo vehicles lights...but make sure there is ample gap between you & him. Alternatively you could try & adjust your eye level or use your sunshade...but your vision shoud not be hampered. Flash your lights once to signal the oppo vehicle to dip the lights....but I dont think it works here. Driving at slower speeds at night safer option.

OT: Some truck drivers follow an old practice of driving with only the left H/L.....and keep their RHS signals on. Only if they sense that the opposite vehicle is approaching dangeroulsly, they switch on or flash their right H/L. Be careful about this.

Drive safe !!!

[kdeepakk]

Ok, i will just write, how i drive in the night? I usually prefer night journey's cos of less disturbances by the passing villagers & cattles.

When you are driving in night some of the things you can follow are:

1. First you ask the opposite person to come to low beam ( this can be done by doing dim & dip. This is understood by max no. of drivers )

2. If they dont come to Low beam, you also dont come to low beam, cos the low beam power may be less compared to the coming vehicles high beam.

3. Never look into the oncoming vehicles head light. It will / can make you blind of couple of seconds.

4. Just keep to your left and watch the left corner of the road & drive

5. Just see the dividing white lines, and try to keep yourself away from the line ( towards left ). This is how some people follow

If i remember more, will update.

Regards
Deepak

[theMAG]

You could try this - its worked very well for me: When caught in an oncoming glare, voluntarily focus your eyes on the line left-of-center downwards onto the road. This alleviates the glare while keeping your sight on the road ahead

[Absar]

theMAG, I agree with you. That works! In fact trying not to look at the glare is a big help.

[car_crazy1400]

I do the same as The mag, really is effective, but countering high beams usually with continous flashing of lows and highs usually works, except on some interior state highways

[tsk1979]

Use your hand.
Thats what I do, shield my eyes by keeping my hand in such a way that right lane visibility is blocked.
If the offending vehicle is a smaller one then I go towards the guy, that way I am sure I wont be rear ending a truck, and the smaller guy goes off road to avoid a head-on. just kidding.

Use the first suggestion about using hand.
In case of too much oncoming traffic, look towards left as Mag said, and slow down to a crawl.

I slowed down from 80 to 40 and barely missed a broken down truck as I could brake in time when driving from hyd to blr at night.

So if you cant see, brake, slow down. Don't leave it to lady luck.

[adya33]

Thats a very good suggetion tsk.
theMAG has also given a great suggetion, which is the one I follow regularly.

Do flash your lights 3-4 times when vehical is approaching it 90% of the times this works. If it doesn't don't switch to high beam, just because other person is an idiot doesn't mean you also have to be. Just slow down and continue in your lane.
Also do remember to drive slowly in night time. Your max speed should be not more than 70% of your max speed you would be doing during day time.

Lastly avoid night driving unless absolutly necessary.

Lastly do checkout this article from our article section
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/owning...road-trip.html

[Absar]

Dont know if its off topic. But how does one manage with a full load and the front headlights pointing higher than the road, in such a way that its useless and there's no beam level controller. Its irritating to keep adjusting the screws in the headlight unit.

[iraghava]

Originally Posted by kdeepakk

3. Never look into the oncoming vehicles head light. It will / can make you blind of couple of seconds.

4. Just keep to your left and watch the left corner of the road & drive

5. Just see the dividing white lines, and try to keep yourself away from the line ( towards left ). This is how some people follow

Originally Posted by theMAG

You could try this - its worked very well for me: When caught in an oncoming glare, voluntarily focus your eyes on the line left-of-center downwards onto the road. This alleviates the glare while keeping your sight on the road ahead

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Use your hand.
Thats what I do, shield my eyes by keeping my hand in such a way that right lane visibility is blocked.

Use the first suggestion about using hand.
In case of too much oncoming traffic, look towards left as Mag said, and slow down to a crawl.

I slowed down from 80 to 40 and barely missed a broken down truck as I could brake in time when driving from hyd to blr at night.

So if you cant see, brake, slow down. Don't leave it to lady luck.

Those are some Very, Very good suggestions for Night driving & I follow them regularly. You would be very well off to use them as guidelines for night drives.

[icemanz]

Some very good suggestions from our fellow Bhpians.

On single lane highways, I usually move to low beam on sighting a vehicle approaching from opposite and give indications by switching to high and low beam.

Then continue driving at low beams. Well for proper visibility I have the fog lamps on (thanks to hyundai for well placed fog lamps on verna).

always advisable to slow down during turns, cos most truck/bus drivers drive at the center of the road when they approach turns.

Keep left, but don't get to the extreme edge and run into stones/road signs.