Night driving lenses

timetochill

timetochill

Joined
Apr 20, 2012
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Any one used the clip on type to stop bright lights dazzle?
 
I use beer goggles, makes the journey look slimmer, more fun and prevents road rage, as there’s no point jumping out at drivers trying to look hard, as you’ll just look like a droopy 😀

IMG_4044.webp
 
Lots of previous threads. As an optometrist I'd say they're a waste of time . Any tint reduces the amount of light you have to see with just as much as that causing glare. The french abandoned yellow tinted headlights for a similar reason
 
I've just picked up some zeist distance glasses designed to reduce the starburst effect of car lights at night.
I say they work.
Not yellow, but specifically designed.

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The Wino said:
Lots of previous threads. As an optometrist I'd say they're a waste of time . Any tint reduces the amount of light you have to see with just as much as that causing glare. The french abandoned yellow tinted headlights for a similar reason
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Agreed, I tried them and it’s like driving at night wearing sun glasses.
 
I drove a lorry overnight for 12 years, never had an issue. I retired almost 3 years ago and have lost much of my confidence driving my car at night mainly due to all the cars that now have leds.
The only advice that I can offer is to keep your windscreen as clean as possible inside and out, and if you wear spectacles make sure that they are spotlessly clean too before driving. (y)
 
bladerunner said:
I've just picked up some zeist distance glasses designed to reduce the starburst effect of car lights at night.
I say they work.
Not yellow, but specifically designed.
Click to expand...
That's a different thing to the yellow tints. They will have a really good anti reflection coating which will reduce the starburst effect although it will make them harder to keep clean. I wouldn't be without an anti-reflection coating. The anti-reflection coating cuts reflections from the spectacle lenses it won't help any starburst effect from the windscreen as Wee Bold Davey says the most important thing is the keep it clean.
 
Wee Bold Davy said:
I drove a lorry overnight for 12 years, never had an issue. I retired almost 3 years ago and have lost much of my confidence driving my car at night mainly due to all the cars that now have leds.
The only advice that I can offer is to keep your windscreen as clean as possible inside and out, and if you wear spectacles make sure that they are spotlessly clean too before driving. (y)
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And use drops meant for dry eyes, as a common issue for us middle aged and above individuals.

Tried yellow glasses great against headlights, but when you can’t see kerbs etc, more dangerous.

Drops as recommended by my option certain,y made some difference, doesn’t dull the lights, but reduces blurring.
 
Guffy60 said:
And use drops meant for dry eyes, as a common issue for us middle aged and above individuals.

Tried yellow glasses great against headlights, but when you can’t see kerbs etc, more dangerous.

Drops as recommended by my option certain,y made some difference, doesn’t dull the lights, but reduces blurring.
Click to expand...
Agree with all that, my optometrist also gave the advice that yellow lenses are waste of time. money even though on sale in the same establishment.

But mention of 'dry eyes' drops prompts me to add:
My GP said I should us these 'whether I feel the need or not' to deal with sore & watery eyes and it definitely helped to use them consistently, just as when taking all the other daily lifesavers, but my optometrist gave what's for me been a better solution: a heated eye mask.
Many brands available from usual internet or high street opticians or the well known chemist that sounds like a footwear outlet, price around £10.
They come with instructions but the principle is 25seconds in microwave, then rest it over your eyes for few mins (until noticably cooler) then gently massage the eyelids. This opens the eye's natural lubrication channels & after a week or two of daily use requires just a top-up once every few days.
Sounded a bit snakeoily but for me it's worked brilliantly and so much nicer than doing the drops.
No promising the same result for you but possibly worth considering.

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stuartholmes said:
Agree with all that, my optometrist also gave the advice that yellow lenses are waste of time. money even though on sale in the same establishment.

But mention of 'dry eyes' drops prompts me to add:
My GP said I should us these 'whether I feel the need or not' to deal with sore & watery eyes and it definitely helped to use them consistently, just as when taking all the other daily lifesavers, but my optometrist gave what's for me been a better solution: a heated eye mask.
Many brands available from usual internet or high street opticians or the well known chemist that sounds like a footwear outlet, price around £10.
They come with instructions but the principle is 25seconds in microwave, then rest it over your eyes for few mins (until noticably cooler) then gently massage the eyelids. This opens the eye's natural lubrication channels & after a week or two of daily use requires just a top-up once every few days.
Sounded a bit snakeoily but for me it's worked brilliantly and so much nicer than doing the drops.
No promising the same result for you but possibly worth considering.
Click to expand...
Thank you, will do.
 
I agree with using heated eye pads. Southampton Eye Hospital advised me to use them. As stated above, the idea is it unblocks the glands that produce the natural lubricant, this is not tears. When there is not enough lubricant the eye becomes dry and irritated which means more tears are produced and cause blurry vision.
 
Many years in while doing night march navigation training, we were taught to attempt to differentiate a distant house light from a vehicle light. We were told to sweep our eyes quickly up and down over the light. A 240v AC house light would appear as a series of dashes whereas a 12v DC light would be a continuous streak. This is not so reliable now we have LED lighting as many switch on and off very rapidly to avoid overheating. Perhaps someone could devise a pair of specs with LCD shutters which detect and blank out some of the glare from LED lights. ( Pat. Pending)😚
 
I don't find glare from oncoming vehicles to be any where near as much a problem when sitting fairly high in my motorhome seat, but can be troublesome when driving a car.
Red torch light is used by amateur astronomers when out 'in the field' as red light (and I would guess to a certain degree yellow light as its toward the same end of the visible light spectrum) has less effect on night vision and the pupils in your eye remain wider, but I suspect you'd have to pop the glasses on just before you saw an approaching vehicle's headlights, and whip them off again as soon as it had gone past to get the full effect.
I wonder if that's why it was decided that vehicle rear lights should be red?
 
Yellow lights and yellow lenses have been proven to be no better for glare.

And most of the issue with LED headlights... is actually that we're just getting older. LEDs have less over spill and less glare than incandescent lights. So unless it's a tight bend or steep hump, you're not in the main beam. Most of the reason they look worse is because our eyes are just much worse than 10 years ago. Sorry.
 
"Yellow lights and yellow lenses have been proven to be no better for glare." however, I found they helped me personally, anecdotal evidence I know, but I think I will continue to wear them if its all the same

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swemmy666 said:
"Yellow lights and yellow lenses have been proven to be no better for glare." however, I found they helped me personally, anecdotal evidence I know, but I think I will continue to wear them if its all the same
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They reduce the glare from oncoming lights. But they also block the same lights that you're using to see. So everything is darker, including from your own headlights. With the glasses, you don't lose as much night vision when oncoming cars blind you. But the way your eye compensates, without glasses you're only blinded down to slightly more than the level you'd see with the reduced light from the glasses. But your irises can open up between cars, whereas the glasses stay dull. It feels better, but you can see less. The tests with actual driving on the dark showed they weren't any safer and might possibly be worse.

What we need is fast acting reaction lenses for night driving. Or even better, pixelated reactive lenses that shade only the bit of your vision with the headlights in.

But wearing any kind of tinted lens in low light might technically be illegal anyway.
 
so, I started wearing these not for oncoming headlights but sky/land contrast, I often used to have to drive east to west to the M1 before sunrise, the roads were dark and the sky very bright, the sky was causing my pupil to close because of the amount of light, making the dark road difficult to see. By wearing the glasses I definitely got a better view of the road. I noticed that it also help with the full beamers you meet regularly. I also found that they helped on night time motorway driving, especially when the motorway had lighting. Again the reduced contrast improved my overall vision , I'm not doubting that the yellow lenses allows less light in, but if my eye cant handle the contrast and close the pupil, I will actually see less then with the glasses. Been wearing them regularly in the last year due to issue with cataracts and led headlights (and the beamers), getting the cataracts sorted, so we will see if I continue to get improved overall vision with or without the glasses.
 
Guigsy said:
They reduce the glare from oncoming lights. But they also block the same lights that you're using to see. So everything is darker, including from your own headlights. With the glasses, you don't lose as much night vision when oncoming cars blind you. But the way your eye compensates, without glasses you're only blinded down to slightly more than the level you'd see with the reduced light from the glasses. But your irises can open up between cars, whereas the glasses stay dull. It feels better, but you can see less. The tests with actual driving on the dark showed they weren't any safer and might possibly be worse.

What we need is fast acting reaction lenses for night driving. Or even better, pixelated reactive lenses that shade only the bit of your vision with the headlights in.

But wearing any kind of tinted lens in low light might technically be illegal anyway.
Click to expand...
Certainly in some countries they are illegal p. In Germany there is a minimum light transmission for lenses used at night and as photochromic lenses retain some tint when unreacted Zeiss used to produce a chart of the prescriptions that allowed photochromic lenses to pass the requirements. They also produced a bonded photochromic lens that was a clear lens with an even photochromic layer that meant any prescription could be made ( my now useless memory remebers it as a 1.2mm layer with the brand name uberfang!)
Photochromic lenses I suspect are unlikely to be useful for driving at night the light levels won't be high enough to cause a reaction and they lighten a lot slower than they darken so would be dangerous as the glare sorce passes by. I suppose you could have an electrically powered photochromic lens and light sensors but if it selectively cut out light in some areas as your head moves the darkened area would have to constantly change but with technology it would be a brave person who said never!
I was intrigued to come across a clip on probably from the 1950,s once with a yellow tint and an upper silvered area to the right the idea presumably was that you would turn your head so the silvered area cut out light from oncoming headlights then straightened as they went past it goes to show that little changes.
Cataracts are one of the biggest causes of older people complaining about glare. If glare is that much of a problem due to cataracts people ought to stop driving at night.
 
When fishing at night and I have the need to use a head torch or other bright light source, I nearly always close one eye; this maintains night vision in the other and the exposed one seems to adjust back quicker too.

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