Safe Driving in Reduced Visibility
Remember: Driving in fog, rain or hail can greatly reduce your visibility and the visibility of your vehicle to the rest of the road users.
You can improve your visibility as:
- Use vehicle headlights (dipped beams) when driving at night or in poor weather conditions
- Keep longer safety distance and don’t follow too closely to vehicle ahead
- Signal well in advance when turning, stopping or before start any other maneuver
- Pull off to the side of the road if conditions are too poor to keep driving and signaling your vehicle by emergency lights on
So what other can be done for safety driving in such a bad weather conditions?
Driving in fog
Driving in heavy fog is dangerous, and should be avoided if at all possible, especially if you are a young driver with driving experinence less than 2 years;
- When visibility is greatly reduced and you are not sure while driving the best option is to pull off to the side of the road and wait for the fog to lift. If you decide to do that do not forget to stop the vehicle on the proper allowed place (as far off the road as possible) and turn on the vehicle’s emergency flashing lights.
- If you decided to keep driving do in in high coution and slow speed!
- Always use the low beams. High beams, or bright headlights, will throw light into the fog, making it even more difficult to see the road.
- Don’t stop in the middle of the road.
- Don’t use vehicle’s emergency flashing lights while driving.
- Use the windshield wipers to clean the outside condensation.
- Trning your airconditioning system. It will help you to cut the inside condensation on the windshield.
- Keep longer safety distance from other vehicles, and signal early for any maneuver you plan to start.
- Use the right edge of the road as a guide to help you stay in your lane.
Nighttime driving
Driving at night is more difficult for most people than driving in the day. That’s because it’s harder to see road signs, other vehicles, pedestrians or other objects on the road (or close to the road lane). It’s much more harder to judge the distance between your vehicle and others vehicles, road users or other obstacles on the road.
So what to do?
- Always use your headlights when driving at night.
- As there is no other oncomming vehicles, use your “brights” or high beam headlights. It will enable you to see at a greater distance (but do not do it at a foggy night). Keep in mind to switch back to the low beams as soon as another vehicle approaches so the driver isn’t
“blinded” by the bright light. - Keep your windshield and headlights clean.
Driving in rainy or wet conditions
Driving in the rain or when the road is wet can be especially hazardous. Most of the drivers fail to slow down and the result is lose control of the vehicles – and may ocur an accident.
Some tips for driving in wet conditions:
- Always use vehicle’s headlights (low beam) and windshield wipers when it’s raining
or hailing; - Stay toward the middle lanes of the road, if possible, to avoind the “pooling” (which is most likely to occur near to the right edge of the road;
- Keep slow, steady speed, especially on curves.
- Avoid the temptation to slam on your brakes. Use the brake slowly before stopping.
- Keep longer safety distance. Don’t follow other vehicles too closely (especially with trucks and other vehicles with large tires, because of the water spraying from
the tires, that can make more difficult for you to see the road) - Be extremely careful when driving through puddles.
- Don’t drive through water that’s so deep that you can’t see the ground through it.
Source: www.gemplers.com