Don’t let your car go bump in the night
Driving at night can be somewhat intimidating for many. Sure, you don’t need to deal with obstacles such as traffic congestion, but night time driving is a whole new ball game that demands a number of precautionary measures.
Graham Eagle, CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles South Africa provides some tips to help avoid your car from going bump in the night…
These tips include:
- Glare-free rear-view mirrors that help prevent uncourteous drivers from dazzling a driver with their high beams, since the mirror auto dims to avoid glare when driving at night.
- For some people, commuting at night or before dawn can be quite stressful especially if your eyes are sensitive to bright lights in low-light settings, this glare can be disorienting. If you are traveling in a low-light single lane road with no additional streetlights, the glare from an approaching vehicle can blind you and cause you to lose control of your car. Glasses-prescription or otherwise-add another reflective surface between the driver’s eyes and the road, so choosing the correct glasses to wear is crucial to improved nighttime visibility. The best option? Prescription lenses with anti-reflective coating. This coating stops additional, unnecessary light from reflecting inside your lenses while allowing more light to pass through.
- Cars come with dashboard dimmer switches for a reason. With bright dashboard LEDs and large infotainment screens finding their way into vehicles, there are a lot of sources of unnecessary and distracting lighting inside a vehicle that can diminish your vision. Dimming dash lights can remove reflections on the windshield and allow your eyes to better adjust to the darkness ahead, improving nighttime visibility.
- Bright lights can seriously disrupt your concentration at night. Inside the car, your eyes are used to the dim glow of the instrument panel and the dark road ahead. It’s very easy to become distracted and stare into a bright road sign or the headlights of an oncoming truck without even realizing it. Turn your gaze away from other lights on the road, and don’t look at oncoming high beams.
- No texting whilst driving!
- Windshields that appear clean during the day may reveal streaks that can cause a glare at night. One solution is to polish glass with newspaper to remove residue.
- Avoid eating foods or taking any form of medication that can potentially lead to drowsiness.
- Take energy drinks.
- Increase your following distance at night, as your visibility and reaction times as well as those of other drivers and road users will be reduced.
Innovative and truly novel experiences are not all that common in the motoring industry. But now local car buyers can get ready for exactly such an occurrence via a first for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) South Africa and its network of dealers: From 08h00 Tuesday, the 26th March, through until 20:00 Wednesday, the 27th March, potential car buyers can test drive and/or purchase a Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Jeep or Fiat Professional vehicle from any FCA dealership at any time of the day or night! That’s right: anytime of the day – or night – during The Night Of Miracles sales marathon event that will see a remarkable 36 continuous hours of great deals become available to interested car buyers, Alfisti, and all manner of motoring fans.
For many potential customers, driving at night can be quite an intimidating experience, despite not having to deal with peak-hour traffic congestion. However, conducting a test drive during the Night of Miracles campaign presents prospective buyers with a unique opportunity for testing these vehicles in different conditions and providing them with a chance of testing out some of their enhanced safety features.
Each of the vehicles on show will boast its own unique array of optional feature inclusions, including some that might enhance your night driving experience. These include special features such as fog lamps and Xenon headlights that provide a greater amount of visibility for drivers by illuminating more of the road, courtesy of providing a wider and longer beams, enabling drivers to see further ahead on the road.
Safe driving.