When I was trained as a school bus driver long, long ago, a couple of rules I learned hold true for drivers of any type of vehicle.
The first rule is to always drive with your full headlights on. I actually first learned this in Sweden where the police cars had their headlights wired to come on automatically on starting the car. I've tried to remember this ever since. I forget now and then, including at night with a bus in downtown Minneapolis!!!
Your headlights increase your visibility to other drivers, especially if you have a car whose color is close to the background. With lights on, a light car on snow and a dark car on asphalt are much more visible. If your car is more visible, you have less chance of a driver turning into your path. This can also be important in parking garages where many cars almost become invisible without lights. Even if you think you can see very well, always assume others might not see as well.
If your full headlights are on, then your taillights are also on. This can protect you if you are coming from an on ramp that merges in a tunnel. Few drivers will even notice you if your taillights are not on. Have you noticed cars at night without taillights, but if you pass them you see they have headlights? The drivers assumed the daytime running lights also turned on their taillights.
The second rule is that backing vehicles have right-of-way. At the company I worked for, school buses were parked front in. If a driver backs out with a 30+ foot bus on either side, there is no way that driver can see a bus coming down the lane. So, the rule a backing bus has right-of-way.
It also is a good rule in a public parking lot or ramp. With all the SUVs and pickup trucks, can a driver backing out a space have any way of seeing a car coming down the lane at 10+ miles per hour. Yet there are many drivers who think they are the only driver around and will zip right behind a car already partially out. And often these same drivers do not have their lights on in the parking ramp!
