Darker Days and Using Your Headlights

Facts and misconceptions about headlights.

There are quite a few different types of headlights available on the market. They range all the way from headlights that are designed to offer the maximum level of performance to headlights that are designed to give a very stylish look to a vehicle. There are some things about headlights that you should keep in mind, no matter what type you have.

They Don't Make You Safe

You will find plenty of expensive headlights advertised as making it safer for you on the highway because of their extremely bright illumination qualities. While brighter headlights can certainly help – though they may impair the vision of other drivers – they don't actually make you any safer. Headlights only illuminate what's in front of you; it's still up to you to react to it properly.
When you are driving with your headlights on, look to the very end of the patch of road that they illuminate. As you're driving, pick out a landmark on the highway or on the side of the road and count off how many seconds it is before your car passes over it. You should have at least 2 seconds of time before the object becomes visible in your headlights and it passes under your car. Having this two-second interval between the time you can see something and the time that your car would strike it is adequate enough for most drivers to react before they strike a fixed object or another vehicle.
More powerful headlights will not necessarily add a great deal of visibility. They may brighten up the scene and they can be useful, particularly if you drive on a lot of very dark roads. Before you get overly impressed with a pair of headlights that promise you a very long area of coverage in front of your vehicle, remember that everybody's eyesight is different and that the extended coverage range of the headlights will not make your night vision any better nor will it make your reflexes any faster.
The end of the year is upon us and that means that it's getting dark out much earlier. If somebody causes an accident through their own negligent driving habits and you are injured, contact an auto accident attorney. A Dallas auto wreck lawyer can take a look at the circumstances of your accident and see if there is a good chance that you would win a lawsuit, were you to file one.