Survey: Drivers More Fearful of Accidents When Driving at Night
Are You Afraid of the Dark? is not just the name of a sometimes-frightening, sometimes-hilarious show that aired on Nickelodeon during the ’90s, it’s also a question. And it is a valid one! Ford of Europe recently commissioned a poll to be conducted by Opinion Matters to determine just how afraid of the dark drivers are—though, unfortunately, there were no questions pertaining to the existence of one Dr. Vink with a vuh-vuh-vuh.
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A sample of 5,030 drivers from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain were queried as to their thoughts on driving at night. According to Ford, 81% are a-scared when driving on the road at night. A whopping 87% of all women polled said that they are more fearful when driving after dark.
Additionally, around 20% of drivers are afraid of hitting a pedestrian, more than 50% are stressed out by poor night vision, and more than 33% fear being involved in a nighttime accident. Ford did not disclose now many drivers were frightened of picking up axe-wielding hitchhikers or inadvertently driving into some kind of ghost town.
The fear of collisions with pedestrians and the frequency with which pedestrian deaths occur after dark is here used to support the importance Ford’s Pedestrian Detection technology.
“We know some drivers find hitting the road at night a stressful experience. Especially driving in towns and cities, pedestrians—sometimes distracted by mobiles—can without warning step into the road, leaving even alert drivers very little time to avoid an accident,” said Gregor Allexi, active safety engineer, Ford of Europe. “Day and night, Pedestrian Detection is designed to help identify people already in—or about to step into—the road ahead.”
Pedestrian Detection is available in Europe on the Transit, Transit Custom, and next-gen Ford Fiesta and will drop in North America later this year on the 2018 F-150 and Mustang.
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