LATER sunsets and cooler mornings are signs of the coming winter and its expected changes to our driving conditions. Here are tips on how to adjust your driving to best handle these changes.
- On misty mornings, remember to not switch your bright lights on as the beams scatter and reflect back at you off the mist. Use the low beams or fog lights. Follow at longer distances.
- On very cold mornings be prepared for frost. This will make the roads more slippery and calls for wider following distances, gentler braking and going around corners more carefully.
- Areas in South Africa which experience very low temperatures might have ice on the roads. Drive carefully through areas likely to be affected by ice, like under bridges. Also learn how to steer out of a skid if it should happen.
- As dawn breaks later and dusk sets sooner, you can expect to drive more in changing light or evening darkness. If you do not already automatically switch your headlights on as soon as you get in the car, take care to do so now.
- Avoid the glare shining into your eyes by changing your usual driving routes. Glare can blind you up to five seconds – more if you are older or driving at night.
Leave earlier in the mornings or take alternate routes where and when the glare is not as bad.
A pair of quality sunglasses, tinted or polarised, will also reduce the glare.
Keeping your windscreen clean stops glare from obscuring your eyesight.
You can also avoid glare by raising your seat position higher up.
Lower your visor before you leave so you are not blinded suddenly as you turn a corner.
- Do NOT use high-gloss vinyl cleaners on your dashboard.
Avoid the cost and even tragedy that can happen if you do not adjust for the change of seasons. It only takes a few changes to be ready and it can save you plenty.