In a classic quick-fix scenario, night driving glasses promise a lot for not much money. We take a look at night driving glasses and determine their worth.
Written by Chris WilliamsPublished: 28 February 2022Updated: 28 February 2022
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South Sherwood Street
Other than eating a sandwich to satisfy hunger, there aren’t many quick fixes that work. Get-rich-quick schemes certainly don’t, nor do get-ripped-quick workouts. Night driving glasses promise a lot for little investment, and we wanted to find out whether they are one of the few genuine quick fixes or just another tacky fad.
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What are night driving glasses?
Night driving glasses are inexpensive prescription-free glasses, normally the lenses have a yellow tint, an anti-reflective coating, and sometimes polarised. In the visible light spectrum, blue light has the highest amount of energy and is most likely to cause glare in the eye. And the yellow tint is used to block some of the blue light from reaching your eyes. The anti-reflective coating is to reduce glare and reflections on the lenses themselves (but coming from headlights and streetlights, for example).
What night driving glasses do
Studies, such as the research conducted by the Schepens Eye Research Institute, have concluded that glasses like this make no difference to one’s ability to see more clearly while driving at night. The particular study by SERI used an experiement with drivers’ response times to pedestrians to find out.
Glasses of this type have been around for a long time and were originally developed for hunters because they increase contrast during daylight thanks to that blue light blocking. It makes it easier to spot birds against the sky, for example. They can also be useful for daytime driving.
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Hunting glasses
While blocking some blue light may help reduce glare, it also reduces the overall amount of light hitting your eye. And for night driving, that’s not a good thing.
Conditions that affect night vision
The condition of peoples’ eyesight comes down to genetics but also, your eyesight naturally degrades as you age. Poor night vision often becomes more obvious beyond the age of 40. Conditions such as glaucoma, cataracts, myopia, and even vitamin A deficiency can all make seeing in low light harder.
If you are having problems seeing at night, the first thing to do is visit an optician for an eye exam, rather than buying a cheap pair of yellow tinted glasses off Amazon. If you already use glasses, an anti-reflective coating help reduce glare from lights at night. But if you don’t wear glasses, clear lenses with this anti-reflective coating won’t help you. Like we stated before, it’s just to reduce the glare on the lenses themselves.
What you can do
In terms of car maintenance, there are simple things you can do to improve vision while driving at night and during the day.
Keep your windscreen clean
Grubby windscreens are harder to see out of, this much is obvious, but glare is worse too. Keep your car’s screenwash topped up and spot clean the windscreen and windows with glass cleaner when you need to. Below you’ll find our favourite screenwash and glass cleaner.
Totally Essential’s formula is biodegradable and doesn’t contain toxic methanol or ethylene glycol and the container is made from recycled plastic. It needs to be good because it’s a bit more expensive than other options. And it is. This is a heavily concentrated screenwash and can make up to 20 litres of screenwash. It cleans well in a streak-free way and to help battle residue build-up, it also contains rain repellent.
If you’re wanting good results quickly then use a spray-on glass cleaner, of which our champion is this one from Autoglym. Designed to quickly clean glass, mirrors, Perspex, acrylic and plastic windows it won’t be as flawless as proper polish, but it will cut through grime, sap and finger marks for a streak-free finish.
Keep headlights clean and clear
Headlights do get hazy over time thanks to UV rays and grit. Restoring them is easy and you can find out all you need to know by reading our headlight restoration guide.
Effective windscreen wipers
Wipers that are worn and ineffective will not clear rain properly and you’ll soon find yourself looking through a rain-covered and therefore glary windscreen. Read our guide to using Amazon Garage to help you find the correct windscreen wipers for your vehicle model.
Interior lights
Reduce internal windscreen glare and eye strain by driving with interior lights off and dashboard lights dimmed.
