Night driving

Well, I'm supposing it is a part of the inevitable getting on process, but the last little while I've found night driving really a bit unpleasant due to poorer night vision. I do a lot of driving on unlit A roads. My eyesight is pretty decent though have specs and wear them on occasion and usually while driving but still notice night vision is poorer anyway. Is it just me?

Also has anyone tried those night driving glasses/clip ons?

GG

 

I absolutely loathe night driving and avoid it whenever possible. I'm a pain to be behind as I go too slow unless the road is wide and known to me,
Jenny

 

I'm so glad you started this thread @Gay Gardener .

No, you are most certainly not alone.

I wouldn't be too quick to blame your eyesight either. I was experiencing the same, so I had a very thorough eye test (not just the bog standard opticians one - I went in various machines to test my peripheral vision, response times, sensitivity and all sorts). The result was that my eyes are better than average for my age, and actually very good.

I blame modern cars, plus older cars with illegal retrofitted lights. They simply blind you.

Now here's some science I found out. Not all parts of the spectrum destroy your night vision. The blue end of the spectrum does, the red end doesn't. Also, because the light is diffused, it means the whole of your eyes gets the brunt of it. Your eyes adjust to the average light intensity over a period of several minutes, so if one oncoming car per minute blinds you, your night vision will still be knackered in the intervening intervals.

I found a solution. Its the special glasses you've mentioned. I bought these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/POLARISED-D...0136238&sr=8-1&keywords=night+driving+glasses

They don't look very cool, but they don't half make a difference. Its like getting brand new superhuman eyes.

They work in two ways:
1. They are polarised, so that instead of getting all the glare from the diffused light as it scatters, you only get the actual light from what's actually going on. It means that oncoming car headlights now look headlight shaped, as opposed to that great mass of intensive night vision destroying light. It also means you can see more detail of the road ahead than you normally would.
2. They filter out the parts of the spectrum that knacker your night vision, while allowing all other parts of the spectrum to pass unimpeded. That means that unlike wearing shades, where everything is blocked to some extent, its just your normal vision, except that light that normal blinds you is significantly toned down.

The upshot of all this is that even if you do get the full wrath of an ill-fitted HID laser cannon beam in your eyes, your only blinded for the time that its in your eyes. The instant its gone, you can see again, ie your night vision is not destroyed for minutes at a time, and most lights don't even cause a problem at all.

For me, driving daily on a very dark road with no side markings, it means that whereas before I was blind for about 50% of the time (very scary) to being able to see perfectly for the entire journey.

The effects are not just confined to driving though. Your eyes have muscles in them, and just like any other muscle, they get tired and strained, which affects your vision even after the event. Then there's the mental energy that your brain uses when trying to build a complete and accurate picture from severely impeded vision. That makes you feel tired all the time. Putting your eyes at ease when driving at night, by using filters such as these, means you can see better at other times, your visual cortex isn't having to go into meltdown, so you have more energy too.

 

Many thanks for that Clue - I've just ordered a pair. Even though Mr Namaste drives us home from Reading when we visit an elderly aunt, the night journey - especially the M25 requires a lot of mental concentration. I am not driving but still like to feel part of the drive and these will help me see and relax more. I'm certain my OH can sense tension in me and it is something he can well do without at that time.
I'll report on my experience on return from our next trip,
Jenny

 

We have a guy in a tractor that has to have all lights on, working and headlights and to make things even better he has working lights on the back of the tractor has well (white light facing backwards like a full beam), i'm sure he's eyesilght is bad becauce other people can't see him for him blinding them from the front and the back

 

Might seem a bit obvious , but is your windscreen really clean inside and out ? The build up of grease and general grunge makes the lights glare . Give it a good clean - not a wipe - with a propriety window spray , wipe on , squeegee off ( the little shower squeegees are ideal )and a quick buff with crumpled newspaper. It makes a difference.
Then again I am not 100% OK with night driving, as I get older my night vision is getting worse.

 

Well my eyesight has improved with age, I no longer need glasses for driving Cheers, Tony.

 

I've been noticing more and more cars these days have those head lights with a bluish tinge, they are totally dazzling when they come towards you.
They appear to have a very concentrated beam which obviously goes up and down as the car bumps along towards you.
Older light tend not to do this to the same degree.

Also if you get one of these behind you, on a dark road, you can almost switch off your own head lights as they light up the whole area, including your mirrors.

My other HATE, is those moron that insist on driving with front fog lights on all the time, just because it looks good, on a wet road you just dont need four lights and four relections, off the road, coming at you.
I just give them full beam.

 

Am I the only person to notice that as I get older my headlights appear to get dimmer, whist all those on oncoming cars keep getting brighter?

 

Glad I am not alone. And yes there are some bizarre headlight arrangement out there, I especially dislike those very white ones (and what is it with those eyeliner shaped things?? are they supposed to be kewl or what? I think they look daft). I think my problem is a mix of what has been mentioned, what seems like insufficient forward lighting on my car (it is quite old) and glare from oncoming traffic.

@fat controller - I've heard about those Osrams but done know anyone with them to report on comparisons to older halogen lights. There are a couple of videos on utube which I've looked at. I may consider it for the current car once I've done a bit more research and I'm looking for a few car so would definitely consider it for that.

@clueless1 - thanks for that post, most interesting to know of some real experience. They are quite popular it seems and there are all sorts of options, I was thinking about the clip-ons. Out of interest, on an unlit road is everything 'yellowed'? And when in a lit area, say roundabout at night, what is the vision like then with them on?

One way or another I've got to try something as I am getting less confident in my night driving and frankly find it quite tiring, especially when I have a 3 hour drive from London at night.

Edit: I should have said, I think the biggest issue for me is the seemingly poor forward lighting quality thrown by my own headlights. Maybe I should get them checked to see if they are properly aligned. (would they do this at an MOT and service which it just had?)
GG

 

I'm the same, dark, rainy nights produce more glare now than 10 years back. Getting older does have some drawbacks.

 

My car is 16, and even by 16 year old standards my particular car (Volvo 940) is well known for its feeble headlights. Yet since I got the night time driving glasses, I find my headlights perfectly adequate now.

There is a very, very slight shift in the colour balance, but nowhere near as much as you might expect. Its not so much that everything is yellow, its just that much of specifically a certain shade of blue is filtered out, so your eyes compensate. Its kind of like normal vision on a sunny evening. Then when you take them off, everything appears to have that sort of violet tinge of dawn.

When I read that they filter out a certain bandwidth of blue, I was worried about things like lights from emergency vehicles not showing up, but I found it really makes no difference. You can still see every colour fine, its just that the blinding colours are toned down.

 

That's really useful @clueless1 - now it's just a matter of what sort to buy, they're not expensive it seems and worth a go, though the full specs for over prescription glasses are probably the most practical as ok for no specs as well as wearing specs but they do look rather drug-addled 60s (not necessarily a bad thing)