While there is less traffic at night, the fatality rate is nearly three times higher than during the day. This is due to a phenomenon known as "over-driving your headlights." At 60 mph, a car travels roughly 88 feet per second, but standard low-beam headlights only illuminate about 160 feet ahead. By the time a driver sees a hazard, it is often physically too late to stop.
The National Safety Council (NSC) highlights that peripheral vision and depth perception are significantly compromised in the dark, especially for older drivers. Night driving requires a different "mental gear"—one that prioritizes increased following distance and a rejection of the high-beam "glare war" with oncoming traffic. The road doesn't change at night, but our ability to perceive it does, making the darkness a primary "driver" of risk.
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