I am 61 and retired except for Uber and Lyft and sometimes I am driving on a Two-Lane Blacktop. And the headlights of a line of cars coming towards me in the other lane are starting to bother me. It’s not that I can’t see anything, I can see the white line on the right side of the road and the double yellow lines in the middle of the road, and I can see maybe 50 yards right in front of me.
But I live in an area where there are a lot of deer, and I have had a number of close calls. In one case I could have touched the antlers of one as I passed it if my window had been rolled down. I could have kissed the motherfucker. In another, I had to come to a dead stop because of a big buck standing in the middle of the road, who did not move for a couple of seconds even after I stopped. But in all of the cases there were no oncoming cars, I could see two hundred yards down the road.
Are there any glasses that I could wear that would diminish the glare of headlights? I’ve seen ads for them, also seen ads for a yellow visor you can pull down. Those actually would be better for me as I need reading glasses to see the Uber/Lyft app. Do they work?
BTW I do know about astigmatism but I don’t think I have it , I never have any problems seeing in the dark except as described above.
It’s possible you’re developing cataracts, which make night driving a bitch. I have the bare beginnings of them and it’s a real pain in the butt. But I’m nowhere near ready for surgery, per my optometrist. And the LED headlight bulbs that cars have nowadays are huge problems. Their glare is much worse than old-fashioned bulbs.
My optometrist says that none of the night-driving glasses are worth a crap, but maybe some other poster has had better luck with them.
This is a big part of the problem. Those freaking things should never have been allowed. The intense blue-white glare is not only much more bothersome than regular old headlights, it actually is objectively brighter. It’s even worse when so many vehicles are SUVs and pickups, where the headlights are mounted higher. It’s gotten to the point that I try not to drive at night at all.
That is what I have read, hoping someone here had found some that helped at least a bit. I just have to stop worrying about it, even with oncoming cars my chances of hitting one are very small. And I do think the newbulbs are a problem, once I turned my bright lights on to tell the oncoming driver that his were on and then I really got blinded
Well, I don’t know what “night-driving glasses” are. In a pinch, prescription sunglasses I’ve used at night, but I don’t think that’s a great solution.
But I have similar problems driving at night…and not all of the problems are caused by some jackass psychopath toilet karen butthole with crap headlights.
I find anti-reflective coating to make a noticeable difference…IIRC maybe twenty or thirty dollars extra per pair, or something like that, depending. Well worth it.
Oh, I see. Well, I suppose an optician could put them on non-prescription lenses. I recommend Gucci frames in black. My good pal Marty Scorsese told me about them.
Actually, I have a pair of (prescription) sunglasses in a gradient tint (darker at top, then fades away to almost clear at the bottom)…something like that might work. I haven’t tried them at night driving, but I wouldn’t hesitate to wear them while driving after hours, Hell, I wear them at all times during the day in public, except at work, indoors or out. Visibility is fine even in darkly lit rooms, like restaurants or bars, largely because of the graduated tint allows for avoiding obstacles at floor height.
QFT. Many of the new LED headlights – especially on big vehicles where they’re usually mounted higher than on regular cars – are as bright or brighter than high beams from traditional headlights. I hate those damn things with a passion. They’re a real hazard to night driving for everyone except the drivers of such vehicles.
As to your original question, I found myself wondering if non-tinted polarized filters might help, which led me to the article below. The answer appears to be “no”, and nor will any other known measures help, other than keeping your windshield and headlights clean, as well as your own glasses if you wear them for driving.
One potential solution, in the category of “if you can’t beat 'em, join 'em”, is to drive a vehicle with bright LED headlights yourself. Mine doesn’t have them, but some time ago I had a rental car that did, and they really did light up the road something fierce. The trouble is that you have to buy a car that has them as stock equipment, otherwise the best you can do is get the brightest halogen bulb that you can.
Yes, you can buy aftermarket LED kits for regular headlights, but my understanding is that there are significant problems with those and they’re not recommended. One major reason AIUI is that headlight reflectors are designed for the precise location of the low-beam and high-beam filaments in the proper bulbs, and LED assemblies can’t match those locations. It might be possible to use bi-xenon HID replacement bulbs, but I don’t really have any reliable information about them.
Except for some gravel roads, and on occasion when I’m in Denver, I drive 2 lane mountain highways exclusively. Lots of deer and moose. Lots of tourists that have no mountain driving experience. And the road is very often is snow packed.
It’s a triple threat. I avoid driving at night if I possibly can.
I’m 63 and have had my cataracts fixed. That was a blessing. No more glasses, contacts or anything!
IANAD - just someone who’s has been under the care of an ophthalmologist since I was about 6 years old due to assorted issues, including congenital and premature cataracts. Not to second-guess your optometrist, but that sounds incredibly old-fashioned. It used to be believed that cataracts should “ripen” before being removed. AIUI, it’s now known that that’s not necessary; you can remove cataracts much earlier than they used to.
I have nothing against optometrists; for certain aspects of eye care they can be as good or even better than an ophthalmologist. But unless you are 100% sure that this guy’s medical opinion is trustworthy, I’d do some independent research/get another opinion/see an MD.
As for the OP - can you get your vision checked by a professional to rule out any problems that should be addressed? (Given the crappy state of American health care/insurance, I know this may be easier said than done. But good vision while driving is essential for your own health and safety as well as other drivers and pedestrians.) You may not realize that your vision isn’t what it once was, if it has been gradually deteriorating. Take it from someone who knows.
And I’ll add my voice to people who loathe those LED headlights. They’re an abomination.
This. I would definitely recommend that you start with an eye exam from a competent eye doctor. IME and IMHO, optometrists are truly excellent at first-pass screening and evaluating your vision.
Refractive error, cataracts, corneal issues, dry eyes … lots of things can cause problems with oncoming headlights even if that’s the only time you notice the problem.
Correcting/managing any problems along those lines, IMHO, is step one.
It’s heartening to know there’s still big bucks to be had in the gig economy.
This is oblique to the issue of cataracts but might still help some. Antireflection coatings on eyeglasses reduce the reflections that duplicate bright lights in your field of vision. Hard coatings reduce the patina of fine scratches that gradually appears on glasses and creates a kind of glare. Unfortunately, for either of these coatings to work, it has to be the outermost coating, and only one of them can be. The other one (whichever it is) doesn’t do any good. Note, plenty of places will give you both and charge you for it, so buyer beware. I picked hard coatings for myself, because the patina is more troublesome for me. But, if you can keep your glasses nice and clean without rubbing them, and replace the lenses frequently as the patina unavoidably appears, the antireflection coating might help.
There was a move years ago to require diagonally oriented polarizers on all headlights. If you wear diagonally oriented polarized glasses, oriented 90 degrees to the headlight polarizers, oncoming headlight light is largely switched off for you, though their illuminating effect on the road, as well as the effect of your own headlights, stays. I don’t know what became of this idea; a shame, as it could have made a big difference for little trouble and expense.
I agree, cataracts are a pain. Mine are still not bad enough for surgery, last time I asked, but if standards for this are evolving I might be ready and will ask next time.
If you’re finding the blue content of oncoming light most bothersome, yellow eyeglass lenses will cut that down. Moreover, to the extent that the fundamental problem is scattered light, you should know that blue light scatters more than green which scatters more than red, because the wavelengths get most scattered by hazes and patinas whose size is small relative to the wavelengths. As an extreme example of this, if you ever get to play with a thermographic camera (which detects thermal radiation an order of magnitude longer in wavelength than visible light), you will find metallic surfaces that you think of as matte (like the dull side of aluminum foil) often have a mirror-like glossy finish as seen by the camera.
I wear night glasses for cycling and find they do help a lot. I don’t find them distracting under normal conditions, but when there’s an oncoming car it is not as bright, nor does it leave a lingering after-image.
But cycling’s a different situation of course; slower, and with a bigger viewpoint, and also needing to see more outside of the beam of my headlight. I don’t think I’d be comfortable wearing them while driving.
You would think the perfect night glasses would be clear but also photochromic (“reactive”). I’m not sure if we have the materials though to change opacity quickly enough.
Sure, nowadays a person can have cararact surgery at any time, but insurance won’t cover it unless the cataracts are beyond a certain point. I’m already going to be paying thousands extra out-of-pocket for corrective lenses when I do have the surgery.
This post may or may not be relevant to your situation. Recently I was on a long trip and had a similar issue, being half blind from the glare of oncoming headlights. At first I thought it was my windshield fogging up, but running the defogger didn’t help. Then I though, “Well, I’m finally at that age when I shouldn’t drive at night any more.” I’m in my mid-50s, about the same age my mother was when she started complaining of the same issue.
Then I remembered that it had been a while since I’d cleaned the inside of my windshield. I used to do it about once a year, but it has been several years since the last time. Because of the fact that it’s protected from the elements and the way it’s angled it doesn’t get as dirty as the outside or the dashboard, but it does eventually get dirty. The dust, dirt, and oil on the inside will scatter light from oncoming headlights, making it hard to see. I pulled of onto a parking lot and cleaned it as best I could with what I had on hand, water and a paper towel. It was like magic. It didn’t completely solve the glare issue, but it was maybe 80% better. After I got home I used the proper materials, windshield washer fluid in a spray bottle and a clean lint-free microfiber cloth. Don’t use Windex or eyeglass cleaning solution or anything containing ammonia, they can damage the seals around the windshield and window tinting.
So you may have eye issues that need attention and by all means have your vision checked. But if it’s been a while, I would try cleaning the inside of the windshield while you wait for an appointment.
Sorry to hear that. Now that you mention it, I had to get advance approval from my insurance company for surgery. But I was living abroad at the time and rarely had trouble with my American insurer (I think it was Aetna) because they knew damn well they were paying a lot less for medical care in South Africa and Singapore than they would if I ended up back in the US for treatment.
Regarding the extra costs of corrective lenses, why is that? Aren’t you a candidate for IOL (intraocular lenses)? For me, corrective lens costs dropped from ginormous to essentially zero after surgery because now I have “built in” lenses. It’s great!
If you get the standard, off-the-shelf, non-corrective intraocular lenses, they’re covered. If you get special corrective intraocular lenses, that’s on you. It costs more and they won’t pay for something that’s not medically necessary.
Thanks for the info. I guess it was deemed medically necessary in my case, somehow, or I just had a good insurance plan.
Eyeglasses cost a fortune these days - or anyway, mine did. My vision was around -12 in one eye and -13 in the other, so I paid extra for the compressed glass, and the bevels, and the bevels on the bevels (I’m not joking). I remember one pair, with the cheapest frames I could find, costing over $800 at least 12 years ago (purchased in the US).
If you’re in a similar boat, would it make sense to bite the bullet and scrounge up the funds for the IOL, knowing that you wouldn’t need much in the way of eyeglass expenses for the rest of your life? (I had mono vision lenses implanted, so now I don’t even wear reading glasses. I’ve got two pairs of glasses, about 6 or 7 years old, that improve my distance vision at night with a very light prescription, and that’s it - no more vision-correction expenses for me, ever, unless I choose to buy new glasses for driving at night.)
Sorry to keep pestering you with questions! It’s just an interesting topic to me, having dealt with the rather expensive fallout from pathological myopia continuously until the IOL changed my life.
You’re a high minus. I’m a high plus with astigmatism and prism. I also pay more for my glasses than I do for my cars.
I try not to buy either any more frequently than necessary.
But isn’t it just a-MAZ-ing how nice these strong prescriptions can look with the high-index lenses and the bits and bobs they can upcharge you with/for?
In the Olden Days, I know how thick the edges of your lenses would have been and how much minification they would have induced. Your eyes must have looked like raisins through the old-tech lenses.
