That's not really true. Thousands of deer get killed on the road every year, because deer aren't smart enough not to be an obstacle when it's dark. Do we therefore change all the speed limits at night? No. It's a driving risk taken, just like any other.
Those deer are killed because thousands of humans aren't smart enough to not overdrive their headlights so they hit obstacles in the dark. Hitting a deer is not a small thing. You will seriously damage your car, and may be severely injured or killed yourself if the deer is tall enough to come through the windshield. In open range country you can also hit a cow. In some areas you can hit a moose.
Do we therefore change all the speed limits at night?
No, but we shouldn't drive like idiots either. It's not just "a driving risk taken", it's reckless and negligent behaviour.
I've driven in Palo Alto near 280, and from the distance, in broad daylight, I saw a buck run across an entire field at full speed and straight across the road about 3-4 cars in front of me, and get hit by the car. There was no way the driver could see what I saw, and he had no chance to avoid it. The deer was simply acting irrationally. To say that people who hit deer are "driving like idiots" is wrong.
I should probably let this go as it's off topic, but I don't understand the description of this incident:
- Was this on 280, or near 280?
- If the car that hit the deer was 3-4 cars ahead and you could see the deer "run across an entire field", why was "there no way the driver could see what you saw"? I'm trying to imagine what sort of obstruction could block the drivers view but not yours.
- How fast was the car going?
- How long did it take the deer to "run across an entire field"?
- Normally deer are active around sunrise and sunset and bed down during the day (source: deer hunting). It seems odd to see a deer in running in "broad daylight".
The point isn't that speed limits need to change, it's that it is incumbent upon the driver to slow down if environmental conditions prevent them from traveling safely at the speed limit.
What is that supposed to mean? You can't have 100% safety at any speed. If it really is incumbent upon the driver to always drive at night in such a way that no collision can occur at all, then why not change the speed limit?
My whole point is that it's not the driver's responsibility to account for every possible scenario. It can't be.
Nobody said anything about 100% safety in some provable way. But certainly it is very much the driver's responsibility to pick a safe speed. Driver's Ed (at least in most? EU countries) teaches that the posted speed limit is just that, the maximum legally allowed speed. As a driver you -- and nobody else -- are responsible for picking a safe speed depending on the environmental conditions.
In particular, the following are explicitly taught in Driver's Ed:
1) Don't overdrive your visibility (headlights, curve)... you must be able to look sufficiently far ahead such that you can stop in the event of an obstacle appearing. (In case of two-directional traffic in the same lane, you must be able to stop in half your visible distance.)
2) Reduce speed according to weather: Rain (aqua-planing), Snow/Ice (slippery), Fog (reduced visibility as in 1)
3) You must be aware of situational dangers and be ready to stop if necessary (e.g. parked cars on the side of the road between which children could emerge...)
Nobody else will tell you what the maximum safe speed at any given moment is. You're supposed to learn how to handle your vehicle during driver's ed, and then act accordingly.
Overdriving your visibility is just plain stupid -- you simply will not be able to avoid a collision with an object in time; you're basically driving blind and hoping for the best.
I seriously think you need to retake your drivers ed class. It’s entirely possible to drive at a speed at night that ensures you won’t hit an object immediately in front of you. That’s the textbook definition of not overdriving your headlights. Most nights aren’t pitch black thanks to street lamps, which is why you can drive at a reasonable speed. And in the cases where the night is pitch black, you can use your high beams when there’s no oncoming traffic. If there is oncoming traffic and you can’t stop in the distance illuminated by your headlights then, yes, it’s incumbent on you to slow down. These are basic rules of the road, not some unobtainable standard to strive toward.
I already told you what is safe: Your headlamps must illuminate a distance within which you can stop (including reaction time). With 50km/h this is ~40m. This is a distance that your low-beams will illuminate even in a dark night. If you want to drive faster you need high-beams or some other sources of light (street lamps).
If you don't overdrive your headlamps than objects will not just "suddenly" appear in front of you unless they are doing something genuinely stupid (e.g. jumping in front of the car). In this case the policy or a judge will decide whether you were driving prudent or safe.
We have collisions (during day and night) mainly because people don't pay attention or don't follow some basic rules (visibility, distance to car in front,...). This isn't rocket science. Don't blame fate or "general risk" if you cause a collision.
And lo, that source's number one safety tip for night driving:
> 1. Allow for enough distance to stop. We recommend that you gauge this distance using your headlights. Low beams should allow you to see up to 160 feet away, while high beams should illuminate about 500 feet in front of you. Make sure that, if and when you must brake hard, that you can brake within those distances.
And what a great tip it is! "Drive so that if you need to brake, you don't collide". No shit, Sherlock.
In other words, people just need to always drive far slower than what everyone believes they can handle in a situation that they aren't trained for, and everything will be fine. Everyone who collides anyway is just reckless and stupid!
Now please excuse me, I have exhausted my sarcasm budget for today.
Good start, but that doesn't say that night driving isn't safe. It says that most accidents happen at night. Accidents are rare.
The page also lists drunk and drowsy driving as one of the major reasons why night driving is less safe. These are correlated risk factors, but neither has to do with the conditions being inherently unsafe.
The page doesn't talk about the extent to which drunk and drowsy drivers account for nights being dangerous.
>> Good start, but that doesn't say that night driving isn't safe.
It also doesn't say that it is safe. It lists all kind of risks that make it unsafe in one way or another. Whose definition of "safe" are we supposed to go by, anyway?
We can probably at least agree on what isn't safe: Crossing a road at night into incoming traffic, as a pedestrian.
It's not about accounting "for every possible scenario."
Arizona has a Basic Speed Law, which says "A person must drive at a speed that is reasonable and prudent under the existing conditions."
If the speed limit is 55 MPH, but conditions (rain, darkness, etc.) would prevent you from being able to safely stop in time to avoid a collision, then you are not allowed to drive at 55 MPH until conditions change.
In British Columbia, the speed limit is defined as the maximum speed limit when the road is bare and dry and visibility is good. From the driver's guidebook[1]:
>Aim for a speed that’s appropriate for the conditions in which
you are driving. The posted speed is the maximum for ideal
conditions only. Choose a slower speed if the conditions are
not ideal — for instance, if the roads are slippery or visibility
is limited.
If a driver was driving too fast to react and stop without hitting that deer, then that driver was driving too quickly.
That's not really what tends to happen with deer. The situation starts with them on one side of the road deciding to cross. Then the partway through they freeze. There's often not time to react. Deer are very poorly adapted to dealing with roads. They're camouflaged which makes them hard to see. And while freeze is a perfectly good strategy against wolves, it absolutely sucks against a Buick.
