The contribution of vehicle lights in urban and peripheral urban environments

In this study, the influence of vehicle lights on other drivers in urban and peripheral urban environments is evaluated in two perspectives. Initially, the contribution of car headlights to visibility of the road and targets located on the road is analysed, with and without street lighting. It was observed that the contribution of the street lighting was adequate for satisfactory visibility of the targets and the use of car headlights did not, under all circumstances, improve the visibility of a target on the road. In a second phase, the influence of glare from vehicle headlights on the vision of a driver was studied under the same lighting conditions. This was found to have an important negative effect on a dark night, so much so that an object located on a road can be hidden from the driver’s view when the driver meets a vehicle approaching from the opposite direction.