Night Driving Glasses - Read This Before You Buy Them

Do night driving glasses really exist? Or is it just a term from advertising? And how to make your night driving more comfortable and safe?

It is a known fact that driving at night is more of a challenge than daytime driving. At night, a driver is attempting to focus on objects that are close. As a result, some blurring may occur with objects that are further away.

For instance, you may experience a halo effect around oncoming headlights or road signs that are beyond the distance you have been focusing on.

This condition is optimized by the fact that your eyes are trying to focus with a lesser amount of light than you are normally exposed to. Even young people with no occurrence of myopia can become temporarily nearsighted at night. Actually, people below the age of around 45 can adjust normally to this focus problem.

The truth is that street lights and current lighting systems DO supply an ample amount of light for the eye to focus normally. The result is that we do not suffer from a mixed focus problem, so night myopia is a fallacy. It may appear that you have a vision problem, but it is no more a problem than you have during the day.

Tinted Eyeglasses

This is the reason behind the appearance of tinted eyeglasses made especially for night driving. The idea being that your eyes use more available light when focusing.

Studies by a group known as ROSPA (Royal Society for the Protection of Accidents) show that this is a misleading claim. Further, their findings say that using tinted driving lenses at night can actually worsen the effect.

Night driving glasses are usually made with tinted lenses. Some windshield makers offer a tinting service that is based on the same principle of alleviating night myopia. Like the tinted glasses, this is not going to help at all and, as I said earlier, may actually worsen the problem. The only time that tinted lenses should be used is when they are prescribed by an optician.

Anti-Reflective Coating

What can be done is to have your regular prescription glasses coated with an anti-reflective coating. You can keep an extra pair of coated eyeglasses in the car for night driving. This will help a great deal.


The thinnest available Hi-Index 1.74 Eyeglasses with Anti-Reflective Coating

Also Important

So what else can be done to help when driving at night? Here is a list of things you can do yourself for this purpose:

• Have your eyes checked at regular intervals.

• Keep a pair of your current prescription glasses or contacts on hand at all times, especially when driving at night.

• It is not recommended to wear glasses with tinted lenses at night. Instead, have them treated with an anti-reflective coating. This is much more useful and effective.

• Always keep the windshield clean and free of smudges and smears both inside and outside.

• Always ensure that your vehicle's lighting is properly working. Regularly check headlights and fog lights, replacing bulbs whenever necessary.

These simple things will help greatly to alleviate myopia at night when driving. The use of tinted glasses as night driving glasses is not recommended by ophthalmologists or opticians anywhere. As stated before, an anti-reflective coating is suggested instead.



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