Night Driving Tips

While riding in the night, seeing and being seen should be your number one priority. Here are some night driving tips:

---- Check your lights, never assume that the lights are all in order. Check them thoroughly and regularly. Terminals can get dirty, wires can work loose and nothing is more dangerous than all the lighting blacking out on a dark or dimly lit road. 

Even a dirty headlamp lens will cut down the limit of your visibility to other road users. The efficiency of lenses can deteriorate imperceptibly with the daily build up of road dirt and the resulting decline in light value may go unnoticed. 

---- A clean machine is not only a more reliable machine, as defects are discovered as matter of course during regular cleaning. Also shining paintwork and metalwork will reflect surrounding light. If your bike has side-mounted amber reflectors, keep them clean and if you don't have them, install them.

---- Whatever message you want to convey, never flash your main beam into the face of other road users. A dazzled driver becomes disoriented and may quite rapidly collide with you or any other road user. Also never take another driver's flashed signal for granted. The lights may have been switched on by accident.

---- When traffic is approaching, always dip your headlamps and look away from the glare of oncoming headlights. Stay in from the centre of the road. 

The vehicle may have an overhang that obstructs your part of the road or it may be hiding a vehicle running with only the near side lights on. This is particularly important when the road is narrow. 

---- On an unlit road, always momentarily dip your headlamp as you approach a bend or corner. This will enable you to detect the glare of an approaching set of headlamps. This early warning could be denied if your main beam has outflared them.

---- Always dip the headlights on the approach to the brow of a hill. If the main beam shines into the open sky ahead and is bounced back as a white glare, and vision is lost.