Weather & Night Driving

Night driving: headlights and dazzle

When an oncoming vehicle dazzles you at night, keep your eyes to the right-hand side of the road and look as far ahead as you can. That keeps your gaze off the glare while staying on the part of the road you are actually driving on.

If you learned to drive where traffic keeps left, your instinct will be to look the other way, and here that turns your eyes straight into the oncoming lights. It is a small detail with an outsized effect, and the test asks about it.

When to dip

Dip your headlights for every oncoming vehicle, bicycles included. You do not need to dip for pedestrians: keeping full beam helps you see them, and they are not steering anything you could dazzle them out of.

Dip when you catch up with a vehicle ahead too, so you do not dazzle that driver through their rear-view mirror. Buses and lorries have large mirrors, so dip early when you come up behind one. Otherwise you can be causing severe dazzle without realising it.

If a bus or lorry is coming towards you at the brow of a hill, dip as soon as you see its marker lights. Drivers of large vehicles sit much higher than you do, so they will not be dazzled by your lights as quickly as you are by theirs.

Why full beam matters

With dipped lights, pedestrians walking on the right are often hard to see. Switching back to full beam in good time gives you a chance to notice obstacles in your path, and keeping a reasonable distance from the edge of the road helps for the same reason.

This matters when overtaking at night. Only overtake if you can see the road ahead will stay clear until you have finished, and go back to full beam once you are sure you will not dazzle the other driver in their mirror. Overtaking is harder in the dark simply because you can see less.

Speed at night

Visibility is severely restricted after dark, so drive at an appropriately low speed. The rule underneath every speed limit applies with more force at night: you must be able to stop within the distance you can see to be clear, and at night that distance is roughly the reach of your headlights.

The lights on your car

  • Only one pair of dipped-beam headlights may be fitted, and they must be adjusted so they do not dazzle.
  • Parking lights are two white or yellow lights that show the width of the car.
  • Indicators must be orange-yellow: two at the front, two at the rear, and one on each side.
  • Fog lights may replace dipped headlights in fog or heavy rain, or be used with them.
  • Auxiliary headlights may only be used together with the standard headlights.

The horn after dark

The horn is for averting danger, not for greeting or complaint. At night, flash your headlights instead of sounding it to warn another road user of your presence. It carries the same information without the noise.

Hazard lights follow the same logic of restraint: they are for an emergency or an accident. In a sudden jam you may flash them very briefly to warn the driver behind that they need to brake hard, but that is the exception rather than a general use.

What the test asks

  • Where to look when dazzled: the right-hand side of the road.
  • Who you dip for. All oncoming vehicles including bicycles, but not pedestrians.
  • That you dip when catching up with a vehicle ahead, early for large ones.
  • Which lights to use on a well-lit road. Dipped beam.
  • That flashing your headlights, not the horn, is the way to signal at night.

The dazzle question is the one to be careful with. Options offering "flash your high beams back" or "close your eyes briefly" are there to catch a panicked answer; the correct response is to slow down and shift your gaze to the right.

Practise this

Reading is not the same as recall under a clock. Sit a full 45-question mock and see whether weather & night driving comes out as a strong area, or try five questions first.

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