Thanks Camilla. You made me feel a lot better yesterday. This was not just down to her forensic grilling of politicians on the GB News Camilla Tominey Show, though that is always a joy.
It’s because she mentioned that she, too, gets dazzled by bright, oncoming headlights. I thought it was just me getting on a bit, but there are some years between us.
This may not be an issue up there with grooming gangs, the state of the economy, wars in Ukraine and Gaza or Tulip Siddiq’s living arrangements, but it is still one the Government needs to address.
Too many motorists are reporting near misses, and six fatalities and 280 collisions a year are caused because drivers are briefly blinded.I was mystified by my increasing difficulties with night driving because my eyesight isn’t deteriorating, and I haven’t needed new glasses for years.
But my optician’s advice is not to get behind the wheel after dark, and for the most part I follow it except on roads close to home I know like the back of my hand. And I always take extra care on those.
The reason for all this is that cars are now being fitted with blinding, highly focused, LED headlights which have replaced the cuddlier conventional halogen ones and their warm yellow glow.
Nigel Nelson has hit out at modern cars with LED lights which are blinding drivers
GB News
While this gives the driver sitting on top of them a better view of the road ahead, the ones coming the other way can’t see a blinking thing.
A survey by the RAC asked 2,000 drivers to estimate how long it takes them to see clearly after they have been dazzled by another car’s lights.
Seven in ten reckoned it was between one and six seconds while 11 per cent put it at six seconds or more.
That’s a terrifying statistic. Six seconds is the time it takes for a vehicle travelling at 60mph to cover 160 metres, the length of 40 cars.
Think how many of those you could bump into if they are parked up and you can’t see them, let alone a pedestrian crossing the road.
The RAC’s Rod Dennis said: “The numbers of reported road casualties where headlight glare was listed as a contributing factor might be small when compared to something like speeding, but that only tells part of the story.
“Is it right we have such a high proportion of drivers who feel unsafe when they’re driving at night, with some having even given up night-time trips altogether?”
Mike Bowen of the College of Optometrists added: “Older drivers are likely to be disproportionately affected by headlight glare, so may be more likely to experience difficulties or to decide not to drive at night at all.”
It seems this technological advance is stopping whole swathes of the population getting out and about in the evenings and that can’t be right.
The Transport Research Foundation’s subsidiary, TRL, is now conducting a study into modern headlights on behalf of the Department of Transport with the results due in a couple of months.
Roads minister Lilian Greenwood said the aim is to get a better understanding of the “root causes of headlamp glare and help identify potential countermeasures.”
That’s all very well, but how long will it take after TRL reports before ministers take action and me, Camilla and thousands of drivers can feel safe again?