Category: Driving Experience
For many drivers, night drives feel relaxing and personal.
Night driving has a totally different atmosphere: roads are quieter, there are fewer distractions, and the focus is sharper.
Contemporary lighting systems increase visibility and decrease eye strain. Ambient interior lighting also gives comfort, which makes night drives easier and less burdensome.
There’s something soothing about driving through streets lined with lights or open highways in the dark of night-a time when driving becomes an experience, rather than a chore.
Driving at night, the experience of driving feels different because of decreased vision, increased glare caused by an excessive amount of artificial lighting, decreased vision cues that create a feeling of going faster, increased senses, as well as an increased quantity of impaired and/or drowsy drivers, creating an experience that feels more intense, focused, or hazardous, in the way the brain interprets speed.
The world appears in the range of your headlights, making it difficult, and the decreased traffic creates a sensation of isolation or freedom.
Perceptual Changes
- Reduced Vision: Darkness reduces visibility; there are no distant visual clues like buildings and horizon to anchor your visual attention. Your mind will have to concentrate more intently on the narrow beam of your headlights.
- Exaggerated Speed: With fewer reference points, the lanes and objects pass you faster, making you think the speed is higher, even if it’s the same as it is in the daytime, as explained in this YouTube video and promoted in an Instagram post.
According to this article from Halfords, along with a post by Stone Canyon Eye Care, tunnel vision and glare are created by the headlights, placing a tunnel effect on everything else while the oncoming car’s headlights create glare, narrowing focus and making it harder to see.
Heightened senses: With less visual input, your hearing, touch, and awareness of the car’s movement may become more active, as explained by this YouTube video.
