By Vincent Van Ross

If you happen to be the owner of a small budget car without an air conditioner, you may be driving your car with one hand and using the other hand to wipe the windscreen from inside to clean up the condensation on the inside portion of your windscreen that mars your visibility during rains.

Do you know just how dangerous it is to do that? While you are doing that your car might hit the tail of the car or any other vehicle in front of you. Or, you may dig into one of those potholes that vanish under the water sheet during monsoon only to emerge out of it with a jerk. Just imagine what that could do to the axel, shock absorbers and steering wheel of your car.

Are you a victim of whiteouts during winter when fog reflects the light thrown by the headlight of your car and reduces visibility to a near-zero level?

These and many other problems could be sorted out without extra cost if the manufacturers and designers of your car apply a little more imagination and put in a little more thought into it while designing the car.

The condensation of rain water inside the car can be reduced if the side window glasses are slid down a bit. But, then, that would bring in the rain water as well. So, that is not a very good idea.

What the designers could do is to fit an additional wiper inside the car that could be activated with the same mechanism that operates the two wipers on the windscreen. So, if you switch on the inside wiper, it will take care of the condensation on the inside portion of your windscreen. So, your attention would not be diverted and you can focus your attention on the road. That would make driving in the rain so much safer.

Similarly, when winter sets in and there is heavy fog, most drivers rush to the automobile market to get their cars fitted with fog lights. These are additional lights that throw yellow light which cuts through the fog thereby improving the visibility level. But, once the winter is over, these are absolutely useless and sit on the bumpers of your car serving no useful purpose.

If the designers had any imagination, they would add a yellow visor to the headlights of the car which can be pulled out and clipped on to the headlights or pulled up and slid back inside the top of the headlight. So, it would do away with the need to install separate fog lights during winter. This would be useful for cars of all descriptions.

All this is possible only if the manufacturers and designers of cars spare a little more thought for their customers’ safety and economy and show a little more concern and imagination towards making driving safer and more comfortable.