Driving at night

[Jonny_]

Glad it's not just me.

I think it's a combination of a lack of street lighting (lots has been turned off to save a few bob), a proliferation of SUVs and tall pickup trucks with high-mounted headlights, and very bright HID/LED lights on modern vehicles.

End result: lots of light coming directly AT you, but proportionally less actually illuminating where you want to go. Also doesn't help that the HIDs on my Ioniq are relatively puny, only 25 watts (which I think allows them to get away without fitting auto levelling and headlamp washers) versus the more common 35 watt versions.

Of course, being a few days shy of 36 years old, I doubt my eyes are as effective as they were at 18. Eye tests and glasses cater for focusing, but do nothing for your ability to distinguish objects in the gloom while subjected to the glare of a bright light source from one side.

Yesterday I ordered a set of the polarised yellow-tinted clip-on lenses to fit over my prescription specs, hopefully they'll improve matters!

[Rover620ti]

xjay1337 said:

I think it degrades over time.

Eat your carrots.
Keep your headlights and windscreen (inside and out) clean.
Look at the inside curb if you're being blinded by oncoming traffic.

I've developed a cataract about 50 years early, watching the inside curb and using the satnav to see the upcoming bend is what i currently use. Really hoping I get my surgery letter soon.

[Butter Face]

I’m 35 and I wear yellow glasses at night, filters out the bright lights and makes it much easier to see.

[Pica-Pica]

Flying Phil said:

I would also like to add that putting indicator bulbs inside or alongside headlamps is a really bad idea - they are so difficult to see when the headlamps are on at night or during the day.....Grrrrr

Many DRLs extinguish, or turn to indicators, when a signal is made.
Also, good driving means indicating when brake lights are not illuminated.

[Rover620ti]

swisstoni said:

This was my experience. Cataracts don't just affect the old - mine was picked up in a full eye exam.

The effect was a sort of starburst effect around headlights. Eventually this effect made it very hard to tell where the limits of the approaching vehicle were.
And of course the problem starts small and increases very slowly over years so it's easy to put it down to being tired or a dirty windscreen or whatever.

This is exactly my experience. I just thought my own head lights were weak. Only after being a passenger with a friend driving I noticed that the oncoming cars were still affecting me. Booked an eye test and they picked up a cataract. I am only 24.

[Pica-Pica]

Rover620ti said:

swisstoni said:

This was my experience. Cataracts don't just affect the old - mine was picked up in a full eye exam.

The effect was a sort of starburst effect around headlights. Eventually this effect made it very hard to tell where the limits of the approaching vehicle were.
And of course the problem starts small and increases very slowly over years so it's easy to put it down to being tired or a dirty windscreen or whatever.

This is exactly my experience. I just thought my own head lights were weak. Only after being a passenger with a friend driving I noticed that the oncoming cars were still affecting me. Booked an eye test and they picked up a cataract. I am only 24.

Funnily enough, about 15 to 20 years ago, my optician said I had the start of a cataract in my left eye. Despite full eye tests every two years since, no other optician has mentioned it. Odd, they were a good independent optician, and no reason to say otherwise. They did ask if I smoked (no), do I wear sunglasses (no, never have done for years - maybe UV is an issue for cataracts?).

[2Btoo]

Jonny_ said:

Glad it's not just me.

Glad it's not just me either. Mid 40's, generally excellent vision (and recent eye test) and I was really wondering what was going on with night driving. It seems that the answer is that it's not just that my sight is failing ....

[jvr]

My eyes have been tested and they are fine, just use regular glasses.
I think narrowish unlit roads with the combo of bright lights and larger cars makes it more difficult to place.
Also I think as we age our eyes require more light to see clearly so darkness creates a problem.
Young kids can virtually read in the dark so I've wicknessed .

[thatsprettyshady]

I was struggling at 32 to drive at night, had an eye test and it turns out I have astigmatism, glasses have improved my night time vision 200%.

[phil y]

Zeiss DriveSafe lenses are a good option for reducing headlight glare, I’ve been wearing them for nearly 4 years, and there’s a marked improvement in glare over a standard anti reflective coating.

[Davie]

I post this in fear of being roasted however my wife also has good vision and has fallen foul of wet roads / ultra bright lights incoming on the unclassified roads around us and I've a cracked alloy sat in the shed where she had to drive into a black hole passing a car one night and fell foul of the broken edge / potholes. So now we both tend to drive with dipped lights but fog lights on (only on the single tracks) as it's a small attempt to see a few feet in front of you when passing oncoming motherships. And I don't buy into fog lights blind you, mine point about 5ft in front of the car and are like a couple of tea lights in a jar... but they do help see what's directly in front at times. I've also tried fighting fire with fire and running uprated bulbs in the dipped beams... they achieved sod all!

[DickyC]

For me one advantage with getting older is headlights have become less bright. My eyesight is still good from the seeing things perspective but bright lights don't trouble me as much as they once did.

Getting old has benefits. For once.

[joropug]

I started to struggle around the same time I was getting headaches at work. Turned out I needed glasses and the difference is insane . Night in particular impacts me as my eye sight isn't that bad, it's astigmatism where your eyes are like rugby balls so get a lot of glare.

Get your eyes tested and buy decent glasses

[TheInsanity1234]

Essel said:

Also, car interiors have so much light in them (yes, top middle age!). In my daily driver (freelander) there is a dimmer dial and i turn the dash lights down. I was in the motorhome at the weekend and haven't found a dimmer yet - I may have to read the manual (fail), and the high beam light was particularly bright and irritating. The combination of interior and overbright exterior destroys night vision and is very wearing.

(Goes and shouts at clouds??)

You're on to something there I think.

My parents have a Yeti with a dimmer wheel for the dash lighting, and I had a Citigo, which didn't. I always found driving at night to be much easier on my eyes in my parents' Yeti than in my Citigo, especially on dark rural roads, as you could turn the brightness of the Yeti's dash right down. To compound things further, in the Yeti the main beam light was in the bottom of one of the two dials, off centre and quite far out of your natural line of sight, but in the Citigo it was a very bright blue light, slap bang in the middle of the large central speedometer. I found myself attempting to maintain a perfect 58 mph on the dial (60 mph was top centre of the dial) on rural NSL roads, as that meant the needle was covering most of the blue main beam symbol, and it made a significant difference to how much you could see, such was the brightness of the dash and various little dash lights.

ETA: I'm also only 21, and I've definitely noticed driving at night to be much more of a strain in the last 4.5 years since passing my test, with the sudden increase of LED lights, either as headlights, street lights, or traffic lights. I think it's the sharpness of the cut off on headlights coupled with the fact LEDs put out a lot of harsh glare without any diffusing filter in front of them. Such is the sharpness of the beans, your pupils are constantly widening and narrowing in response to the sudden changes in lighting levels.
Back in the days of halogen street lighting etc (not that long ago!), all the traffic lights, headlights, and various other lights were often a bulb in a reflector behind a shield or diffuser so that you didn't get any direct light, but look at LED lights now, generally the only filter that is there is a slight frosting that doesn't do anything to soften the glare.

I don't seem to have an issue with xenon/projector headlights, it's specifically LED lights that trouble my night vision so much.

Edited by TheInsanity1234 on Tuesday 19th November 19:18

[Rover620ti]

Pica-Pica said:

Funnily enough, about 15 to 20 years ago, my optician said I had the start of a cataract in my left eye. Despite full eye tests every two years since, no other optician has mentioned it. Odd, they were a good independent optician, and no reason to say otherwise. They did ask if I smoked (no), do I wear sunglasses (no, never have done for years - maybe UV is an issue for cataracts?).

I got asked if I had lived abroad for a while, so I suspect very much that UV is a factor. I hadn't , so after inquiring about my medical past it become obvious the various medications I had been prescribed contained some type of steroids, of which a cataract is a potential side effect. Mine has gotten gradually worse over the last year and I am now waiting for surgery.

[carlove]

My commute takes me 20 miles of A Road, I arrive at work in the dark and drive home in the dark. Personally I've never had issues with factory LED or xenon headlights, what I do have issue with is chavs who put HID kits in their reflector halogen headlights (not so bad when in a car with halogen projectors). Misaligned headlights are very annoying too.

There's a old (just old not classic) Mini I pass most days coming home with a HID kit and it's so bloody dazzling, everyday at least one car behind flashes, sometimes I flash despite knowing it's on low beam, depends how grumpy I'm feeling. You'd think they'd get the hint that their headlights are blinding everybody but nope, everyday there it is.

Also rather annoying is a Kia Picanto that I pass everyday in the morning and evening, the full beams have been on for a week now, that gets a lot of flashes too . There's also a Kia Sportage I see most days which seems to have adopted a sidelights and foglights approach to lighting the road, he can't be able to see much ahead.

I'm 25 and last time I got checked had perfect 20/20 vision.

As a side note I've recently got back from driving across America. Driving at night in the UK is a lot better, Americans are not very good at turning their full beams off, it gets annoying after a while.

[Johnnytheboy]

SturdyHSV said:

Mdm83 said:

Johnnytheboy said:

You AND your family?

Don’t your family ever travel with you? Or do they all face the rear while driving?

It was just your phrasing that made it frankly a bit comical.

For me it evoked images of a gun advocate explaining that if anyone was to threaten him and his family he'd have no excuse but to let off a magazine or two as a warning.

Not a criticism, it just sounded funny the way it was written

Exactly.

[tinnitusjosh]

Flying Phil said:

I would also like to add that putting indicator bulbs inside or alongside headlamps is a really bad idea - they are so difficult to see when the headlamps are on at night or during the day.....Grrrrr

I only just noticed at the weekend that my sidelights / DLRs turn off on one side when the indicator is on - they use the same part of the light cluster. weird

[JakeT]

tinnitusjosh said:

I only just noticed at the weekend that my sidelights / DLRs turn off on one side when the indicator is on - they use the same part of the light cluster. weird

I believe that's due to regulations. Specifically if the DRL is less than a certain distance from the indicator. Specifically makes it so the indicator is better visible vs the DRL.

[df76]

phil y said:

Zeiss DriveSafe lenses are a good option for reducing headlight glare, I’ve been wearing them for nearly 4 years, and there’s a marked improvement in glare over a standard anti reflective coating.

Yep, anti-glare glasses have changed driving at night for me again. Started to really struggle, but these make a huge difference. Using contact lenses in comparison are awful.