Road accidents have always been a common occurrence, especially while driving at night. What got me to writing this post is the alarming rise and regularity in those, these days. I can certainly come up with 4-5 of such road-accidents caused due to night-driving in the last month or so.
So, then I wonder why the irresistible urge to driving at night when your visibility is so severely restricted? Carefully looking at the times these mishaps have taken place, there's a general similarity in those - mostly taking place in between 12-4 a.m. : when the mind is absolutely in no mood to handle what the body is forcing it to do!
"Travelling/driving at night by road has it's own pleasures!" - was what one of my friends who frequents night-trips uttered when we were discussing this a couple of days ago.
Pleasures? What kind of? The pleasure of not being able to see what is 10 m in front of/behind you?! The pleasure of not being able to see clearly which way the road bends and then "joyfully" ending up in the gorge or under the mangled remains of your car?! I'm not sure if that's what I'd come up with as a literal meaning of the word pleasure!
Not that driving during the day completely zeroes down the accidents, but yes, there certainly are less factors weighing against it.
I'm not sure whether the title to the post will qualify as a pun, paradox or an oxymoron, what I simply want to say is, use the day-time to good effect people rather than risking your as well as the lives of others by driving at night.
Drive Safe!
i completely agree with you. i am one person who does a lot of driving and riding. i have done like 800 km in a day and stuff like that. but while doing so i make sure that i dont drive in dark. my driving times are strictly 4 in the morning to 9 in the evening. i prefer not to take any risk beyond that. and i make it a point to advice everyone else to follow safer driving.
ReplyDeleteand this is something that my dad taught me. i m quite thankful to him!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that night time driving should be avoided especially long distance. However most of the accidents occur in the city for which negligence is the only cause.
ReplyDeleteIn the city night driving cannot be avoided because to do that we would have to be "7 chya aat gharat" which is not possible :)
But simple precautions like driving slow and safe, ensuring that all headlights and tail lights are working properly and having a designated driver when going out for partying will help reduce accidents drastically.
I completely agree about night driving not being safe, have witnessed one such fatal accident in the past on th Pune-Bombay Expressway,because of night driving...keep it up Rogerhan, continue blogging!
ReplyDeleteIt is true that the number of road accidents have gone up alarmigly.But all these accidents do not occur at night.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, the number of accidents happening in the day time are far more dangerous and cause more damage than the ones in the dark.
At night the traffic on the roads is relatively less.At night most people are asleep and no one leaves their house unless and untill there is some emergency.As a result ,the entire stretch of the road is available for one's use.
Moreover,most of the roads have street lighting now a days and hence visibilty may not be a problem.Also the lights on each and every vehicle are getting powerful by each passing.Just have a look at the head of the new pulsar 220 or for that matter an activa's headlight is also powerful.Hence visibility is not the primary reason for the accidents.
These accidents may be happening on the freeways rather than on the city streets.The ones happening on the in the city ,records have stated , are due to drunken driving.So it should not only be
"DRIVE SAFE" but also "DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE"
Well, i guess when it comes to night driving, city is not really a serious issue cause you are not really going fast and everything is very much in control and the surroundings are quite lit up as well. the issue is on the highways where the visibility is low, your concentration levels drop due to the stereo type of roads and driving conditions and you are at considerably higher speeds!
ReplyDeleteI'd like to clarify that this post was specifically meant for Night-driving on the expressways/highways. That's where the risk lies more than on the city roads.
ReplyDelete@ Adhish:
As expected, the first comment had to be from you! Your view regarding this issue really backs my opinion, thanks.
@ Vineet:
I agree, 7-chya-aat-gharat is nearly impossible. Even I never follow it! Along with all that you mentioned, even the indicators - use them guys!
@ Ranjit:
Yes bro, will continue writing, thanks :-)
@ Manish:
Read my clarification and also Adhish's comment. He supports and says what I want to...
I'm really not sure about day-accidents being more serious than the night-accidents. Irrespective of the headlights being 'powerful', I doubt if that alone will suffice for reducing the accidents.