The Written Podcast: A British Rant - Turn Your Lights On When Driving in The Rain

I was travelling to work last week when it was raining. It wasn’t torrential rain, but it was raining hard enough to generate a lot of spray. In most instances of any amount of rain, traffic on the roads slow right down. It is understandable that traffic does slow due to the road condition being below the recommended conditions for travelling at the speed limit of 70MPH. With puddles forming on the road, spray from lorries being kicked up in the air, and the rain itself pelting the windscreen at a constant rate the wipers are having a difficult time keeping the screen clear for at least a second, then slowing down in order to keep yourself from spiralling out of control and damaging either yourself or your car is a logical reaction – I have no problem with traffic being slower than the speed limit when it is raining at a high rate.

I have experienced rain so hard that traffic slowed right down to crawling speed, with the wipers at maximum speed, but to no avail. I almost had to pull over and wait for it to ease up before continuing my journey, but I decided to continue forward, so long as I just keep it at a decent speed for the conditions, and I factored in being in a mini-bus at the time, allowing me to see above the roofs of cars and further on in the distance, so I could prepare for any moments the traffic came to a stop for a few seconds before continuing once more. That was the hardest rain I’ve ever been in whilst within a vehicle, so thankfully I didn’t get wet.

When it is raining, visibility lowers dramatically. The harder the rain the lower the visibility – it’s standard common sense. With visibility lowering the harder the rain that’s coming down, it some cases day can become extremely dull. Not anywhere close to simulating night, but the clouds were thick enough and dark grey enough block out a decent percentage of the sun’s rays. And with spray being constantly thrown in the air, and the rain itself pelting the windscreen, it’s logical to turn your car’s lights on. But, some people do not turn their lights on, and that infuriates me.

I honestly don’t care if you’re driving a bright pink car, turn your lights on. I don’t care if you’re driving a massive eighteen-wheeler lorry, turn your lights on. I don’t care if there aren’t that many vehicles on the road, turn your lights on. Just because the time is twelve-noon, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky, doesn’t mean you’re not supposed to turn your lights on – it’s still heavily cloudy and dull. Do these people not turn their lights on during the night also? Of course they turn their lights on, otherwise no one would be able to see them either coming or going… which, when in heavy rainfall, is the very reason why you need to turn them on, so people can see you coming and going. It is ludicrous that people think it is perfectly safe not to turn their lights on when their own vision is lowered due to the weather. The irony is, if they crash into someone who doesn’t have their lights on because they couldn’t see the other car. That’ll be a conversation I’d like to hear – an argument which nobody is in the right; they are both stupid enough to have caused the accident in the first place. If they both had their lights on and were still involved in an accident, then if one person didn’t see the other person even with the lights on, then the causer needs to take their driving lesson again, or an eye test, or both, depending on the severity of the crash.

But the fact that amazes me more than anything else is not only seeing just the one person on the road who believes they can get away with it, but there are numerous vehicles on the road without lights on. I can’t give you the ratio between lights and no lights, but there shouldn’t be as many as I always see when driving in the rain, especially when visibility is incredibly low, especially so, when driving through the worst rainfall I’ve ever experienced when driving.

It’s unnecessary dangerous for other road users. When driving, you don’t have to look out for yourself, but instead watch other road users. If you were to drive exactly how you are meant to when taking your driving test, you’d crash. There are too many people on the road who believe they own the road, who think they can get away with so much, and then wonder why they get in trouble with either the Police or other road users. I will admit, I’ve developed a few bad habits over the years I’ve been driving – but I don’t speed, I don’t deliberately cut people up only by complete accident, I don’t tailgate people, and I always turn my lights on when driving in the rain. I have caught numerous people doing blatantly dangerous manoeuvres on my dash-cam, I’d spend most of my free time uploading videos showcasing these careless drivers to the internet. And besides, what would be the point of uploading the videos anyway, it’s not as if anything is ever going to be done about it.

I see countless videos of these daring drivers, so they do get noticed and commented on, and with so many videos circulating the internet at a fast pace, I don’t doubt those who performed the certain perilous acts saw themselves in the video and read the comments and maybe the actually learnt something of value, hopefully not to do it ever again and be more careful when on the road. But again, those who do learnt something is vastly lower than those who just don’t care about anything, including their own or other people’s safety, so the odds of one of my videos actually making a different is slim and therefore, a waste of my time attempting such.

It’s not hard to turn their lights on, it’s just flicking or twisting a switch. It’s not as if you have to reconfigure the entire car just to make the lights come on, so please if you are one of those people who don’t turn your lights on when visibility is noticeably different, turn your lights on, it’ll make things so much simpler, safer, and gives other road users a chance to see you – a couple of seconds is all that’s needed between an accident happening, and not.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)