With the Holiday Season just around the corner, nights become longer which means motorists will be spending more time driving on dark roads. Although modern vehicles are now equipped with safety features which reduce the risk of an accident while driving in the dark, there is still a problem and it involves drivers and not the vehicles they drive.
The Auto Channel recently reported that there is a growing threat to road safety and it hinges on the fact that there are drivers who cannot see well in the dark. Thousands of Americans have vision problems - an impairment that has grown exponentially with the advent of the computer and the number of hours spent by Americans in front of these. Although many believed that they would be driving much safer in the dark if they have their vision problems corrected, only few are actually going to eye doctors to have their eyes checked.
The Road & Travel Magazine in collaboration with ACUVUE Brand Contact Lenses commissioned Kelton Research to undertake a survey which will determine how serious the threat of dark driving is. The Shedding Light on Driving in the Dark study conducted by the said research facility showed that 32 percent of the respondents are having trouble seeing while driving in the dark.
The study polled 515 Americans whose vision problems have been corrected. Twenty six percent of them admitted that they have trouble seeing road signs. Twenty percent of them said that they find it hard to see animas or pedestrians while traveling in the dark. Twenty percent also acknowledged that they had trouble looking out for turns in the road. These vision-related problems are very alarming as even upscale vehicles like Audis with its safety belts and could not stop a driver from making errors on the road.
Courtney Caldwell, the founder and editor-in-chief of Road & Travel Magazine, pointed out that driving in the dark is one of the most risky things that a driver can do. "Roads with low or no lighting, glare from headlights, and fluctuations in vision are contributing factors to the disproportionately high rate of car accidents and fatalities that occur between dusk and dawn," said Caldwell.
The most common complaint among the respondents is eyestrain with 38 percent of them saying that it is what causes them to have poor eyesight while driving in the dark. Dry or tired eyes are also cited by 34 percent of the respondents. Other vision-related problems include fatigue, headache, and double or blurred vision.
