Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

[blackcat4866]

It's day 2 for me.
Have you ever watched a colorized black & white movie? It's a lot like that.

I get the greatest benefit at dawn and dusk, the times that I do my commuting. The blue gray seems to have better clarity between road and sky.

The reason I got them in the first place is the damned HID headlights that become more common every day. 90% of all the headlights in Metro Detroit appear the same shade of amber and are not very offensive. ~2% of the total, the mildly offensive ones appear a canary yellow. ~8% are the most offensive that appear a neon green color. These are the ones that momentarily blind you when unfiltered.

Interestingly, I've read an article about the ineffectiveness of amber driving glasses. From a totally unscientific users perspective I beg to differ. I experience less eyestrain from my daily four hours of commute. I believe that the reduced eyestrain makes me a more alert driver, if that's at all possible. The point of view of the article seems to be that anything that reduces the amount of light reaching your eye during night driving is detrimental, even dangerous. By this reasoning the best light for driving would be on the surface of the sun, until you burst into flames, of course.

The analogy that comes to mind for me is the cop's flashlight trained in your eyes. (Thanks, by the way.) What can you see? Nothing but glare.

My recommendation: You might like them. I do.

Any other opinions? =^..^=

[Zackuth]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

Years ago I did wear the amber glasses at night when I rode my motorcycle, and it made a great deal of difference. I lost that pair, and just never replaced them, but now that I'm reminded about it.....

[copiman]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

Never used them. Down here we just shoot out the blinding lights. Its a new sport that will probably become another one of those reality shows. Glad they work for you, but love the challange of hitting a moving target. Don't try this at home, we are professionals.

[DallasTech]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

I've used some amber glasses before and they seemed to help a lot, especially when it is raining. The article sounds flawed because it says the reduction of any kind of light would be a detrimental, which I think is false. The problem with night driving is the over powering oncoming lights that dim everything else out. I had some amber fog lights on two of my cars and they helped light everything up.

Now, on the HID hatred, I personally have them on my car and when they are in a correct projector housing, they are no more blinding than and halogen headlights. It's when puts HID bulbs in the halogen housings it becomes a real problem, because do not have the proper reflector and shield design, therefore letting the HID light reflect higher than it should be. Basically, people putting HID lights in a car that did not HID lights from the factory is the problem. Below is a picture showing how a HID light should project light and as you see, it would not blind an on coming driver, but just imagine that same light, without the shield shining in your face... not fun and should be illegal.

bbbbbml11240421972.jpg

[oldschool]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

Polarized glasses keep the light focused so it's easier to see whats around the light source. My wife has a pair of polarized prescription glasses just to help with night driving. She says it makes a big difference and those have clear lenses. I think the light needed depends on the type of driving like city, highway or long dark country roads.
I had an amber colored pair of polarized sunglasses that were dual gradient. Sure the were great in the sun but I found they helped in fog as well. Dark shapes seemed to stand out better through the white fog. They also made a loud crunch when I accidentally stepped on them.

[blackcat4866]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

... They also made a loud crunch when I accidentally stepped on them.

Hope they weren't Tag Heuer. I hear they cost a fortune:
TAG Heuer swiss watches

=^..^=

[michaelc]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

Its one of my biggest hates with night driving. I am from the uk and on my car I can adjust the height of my headlights up or down. So many people have them facing as high as possible which might allow them a few extra metres of the road being lit up which isn't really that necessary but it also has the added bonus of blinding me when they come at me head on causing me not to see the road properly. Even better when they are behind me lighting up my car via my rear view mirror which fortunately I can tint to stop that. I like copiman's suggestion but I think some sort of other alternative such as glasses may be worth a try 1st. My polarised glasses I use for the low winter sun don't work well at night. I was not aware and never thought of looking for night time glasses to help. I was just calmly waiting for the day I finally snap because of it and end up on the news as that crazy guy who went around attacking cars with the usual neighbour on the news footage saying ' he seemed normal, I would never have thought he was some crazy car killer'.

Have not ranted in a while, sorry if this throws the topic off blackcat.


Keep watching the uk news just incase.....

[blackcat4866]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

... I was just calmly waiting for the day I finally snap because of it and end up on the news as that crazy guy who went around attacking cars with the usual neighbour on the news footage saying ' he seemed normal, I would never have thought he was some crazy car killer'.

Have not ranted in a while, sorry if this throws the topic off blackcat.


Keep watching the uk news just incase.....

It's right on topic as far as I'm concerned.
Another case of extreme selfishness. "I get some small benefit, so to hell with everybody else."

Yeah, I'm liking the glasses more each day. =^.^=

[mjunkaged]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

God, I need some. I can't see S**t at night, mostly due to all the ass-hats with maladjusted headlights PLUS the new HID's. I'd say the badly adjusted bulbs, and miswired (intentionally or otherwise) hi-beam on all the time on one side are worse at blinding me than a pair of properly adjusted 500,000 candlepower HID's.
You would think after a couple hundred years of building cars all the MFR's would have figured out an auto-headlight aiming system...but it would cost a few bux more per car.....kinda like seat belts they were FORCED to install after Nader raised holy hell.

Sad part is, most headlights can be adjusted with a screwdriver or torx driver these days....but most people are too afraid of screwdrivers, or (classic move) they go for the adjusting screws when they attempt to change their own headlights, and too broke to take it to the dealer and pay $50 to have it done for them!
Would also be nice if cops would make it a priority to pull over the 'High-beam Harrys' (sorry if Harry IS your name) of the world and gently remind them they're blinding their felloow drivers with a nice correctable citation.

[oldschool]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

Hope they weren't Tag Heuer. I hear they cost a fortune:
TAG Heuer swiss watches

=^..^=

No. I bought the cheapest I could find. Years ago you could get a good pair of shades for about 20 bucks at the local drug store. It's tough for me to find ones I like so when I did I'd buy 2 or 3 pair. Other techs would bring them back to me from various customers or I'd leave them on the table at someplace I'd stopped for lunch.

As far as people and their hi beams. Why do some people wait until they're right on you before they dim. It's like "Thanks buddy but I'm already blind!"
I'm sure if i search the forum there must already be a post about bad,rude and stupid drivers. If not let's start one

[prntrfxr]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

No. I bought the cheapest I could find. Years ago you could get a good pair of shades for about 20 bucks at the local drug store. It's tough for me to find ones I like so when I did I'd buy 2 or 3 pair. Other techs would bring them back to me from various customers or I'd leave them on the table at someplace I'd stopped for lunch.

As far as people and their hi beams. Why do some people wait until they're right on you before they dim. It's like "Thanks buddy but I'm already blind!"
I'm sure if i search the forum there must already be a post about bad,rude and stupid drivers. If not let's start one

One horrendous drivers thread started, just for you buddy. Good idea!

[blackcat4866]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

... So many people have them facing as high as possible which might allow them a few extra metres of the road being lit up which isn't really that necessary but it also has the added bonus of blinding me when they come at me head on causing me not to see the road properly. Even better when they are behind me lighting up my car via my rear view mirror which fortunately I can tint to stop that ...

The oncoming lights are not the worst. It's the ones 10 ft from my rear bumper lighting the interior of my car like a spotlight, and shining right in my eyes from the right and left side mirrors. It helps a lot to block the rear window, but I know of no good way to tint the side mirrors in a way that can be switched for daylight driving.

Because of the glasses, I don't need to flash the offenders anymore, but plenty do. If everyone is flashing you and you are unsure of the proper alignment of your headlights please see this document from coolbulbs:

http://www.coolbulbs.com/HID-VISUAL-HEADLIGHT-AIMING-PROCEDURE.pdf

I'm doing my own little research project on the specific wavelengths of light that are the most offensive. According to this website:

http://www.aa1car.com/library/hid_headlamps.htm

Standard headlamps produce ~18 lumens at 2800 K color temperature
Halogen headlamps produce ~18 lumens at 3200 K color temperature
Standard HID headlamps produce ~71 lumens at 4100K color temperature
Non standard HID headlamp produce ~71 lumens at 6000K or 8000K color temperature
I'm still looking into the correlation between color temperature and RGB.

For an extraordinarily clear description of blue light glare see: http://www.danielsternlighting.com/t...e/bad/bad.html
The short version is that your eyes can not properly react to intense blue light by restricting the pupil. Your pupils respond most efficiently to intense yellow light, and the glasses present mainly yellow light to the eye.

The standard driving glasses block blue light, and about 1/4 of the green light (RGB: 245/218/2). I suspect there is a better balance achievable, but this is a really good start.

More to follow. =^..^=

[Iowatech]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

From the progression of this thread, this might be off topic now, (and way late as well), but I found the amber night driving glasses quite helpful when driving through heavy rain and snow, even during daytime. By filtering out some of the blueish colors, they increased the contrast of everything else, making things somewhat easier to see for me. They worked well at night too, as even the dash lights in my car are way too bright (made me a little slow on dimming the high beams though, as the indicator is blue).

[blackcat4866]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

I'm entirely satisfied with my driving glasses. Significantly less eye fatigue. =^..^=

[Hansoon]

Re: Anyone ever use night driving glasses?

I always believed cats can see very well in the dark..........

Sorry, silly remark, couldn't resist....

Hans