How to Judge the Distance of the Rear Car When Driving at Night?
3 Answers
Methods to judge the distance of the rear car when driving at night: 1. When the rear car's image occupies the entire right rearview mirror, the distance is about 3 meters; 2. When the rear car's image occupies two-thirds of the right rearview mirror, the distance is about 5 meters; 3. When the rear car's image occupies half of the right rearview mirror, the distance is about 9 meters; 4. When the rear car's image occupies one-third of the right rearview mirror, the distance is about 12 meters; 5. When the left rearview mirror shows the middle of the rear wheel cover (rear door handle, body horizontal line, or the reflection of the rearview mirror's bottom line) relative to the ground, that is the position of the rear of the car; 6. When the upper edge of the rear headlight is seen in the interior rearview mirror, the distance between the rear trunk and the rear car is about three and a half meters; 7. When the junction of the rear car's engine hood and the front windshield is seen in the interior rearview mirror, the distance between the rear trunk and the rear car is one meter; 8. When one-third of the rear car's front windshield is seen in the interior rearview mirror, the rear car is almost touching the front car.
When driving at night to judge the distance of the car behind, I mainly rely on the interior rearview mirror to observe changes in the headlights. When the headlights of the car behind appear as two small points of light in the mirror, the distance is at least 50 meters or more, which is relatively safe. When the lights start to blur into a white glow and the outline of the car becomes clearly visible, it's about 30 meters left. If the entire rearview mirror is filled with dazzling light, even to the point of making it hard to keep my eyes open, then the distance is definitely less than 10 meters. I also pay attention to changes in the brightness of the lights—if they suddenly become brighter, it means the car behind is accelerating and approaching, so I need to lightly tap the brakes in advance to alert them. With poor visibility at night, I usually maintain twice the following distance compared to daytime to avoid sudden braking, as the driver behind might also have difficulty seeing the road conditions clearly.
I'm used to judging distance using the side mirrors. Before changing lanes, I first observe the size of the following car in the side mirror: when the entire front of the following car appears in the center of the mirror and occupies only 1/3 of it, the distance is estimated to be about 20 meters, and it's safe to change lanes; when the front of the car occupies half of the mirror, the distance becomes dangerous. At night, observing the position of the lights is even more obvious: if the lights are close to the outer edge of the mirror, it means the car is still far away; if the lights move to the inner edge of the mirror, it's too close. On the highway, I also pay attention to the color of the following car's lights—bright incandescent headlights indicate a close distance, while steady red taillights are relatively safe. When changing lanes, steer gently to give the following car enough time to react.
