What Are Night Driving Glasses? Do They Even Work? – CNET [CNET]

If you’re having trouble seeing at night while driving, you may wonder about night driving glasses, but do they actually work and are they safe?

Driving at night and balancing the deep dark with bright, oncoming headlights can strain the eyes significantly and cause temporary vision troubles. One way that drivers have attempted to address this potentially hazardous difficulty is by wearing night driving glasses. These glasses are meant to reduce the piercing glare of bright lights to reduce eyestrain and help drivers differentiate objects in low-light settings.

On their own, night driving glasses are not for correcting medical vision issues. Regular checkups with an eye doctor who can assess your vision are integral to anticipating and treating any eye health issues that could occur. As we age, or if we already have vision issues, these regular checkups often need to become more frequent.

What are night driving glasses?

Night driving glasses are generally yellow or amber in tint and reduce the glare of bright lights, which not only reduces strain on the eyes but may also sharpen the contrast of objects, hopefully making it easier to distinguish what you see at night. These glasses often have a reflective coating to help further reduce glare. The overall purpose of such glasses is to make driving in low-light settings more comfortable and less dangerous. Night driving glasses are not a replacement for prescription glasses or regular checkups with your eye doctor.

There are a few ways night driving glasses aim to fulfill their purpose. First, the yellow or amber tint on them is intended to filter out some of the glare of blue light, as seen in many modern headlights. Filtering out this blue light is meant to improve the contrast of the driver’s vision, making it easier to see what they’re doing in semi-dark settings. An antireflective, or AR coating, often applied to the lens of these glasses, may help to reduce glare from bright lights and, therefore, help mitigate eyestrain. Finally, some night glasses are polarized, which may help reduce the glare from reflective surfaces in low-light settings. In short, this type of eyewear is designed to reduce eye strain, improve visual contrast and reduce glare while driving at night.

Do night driving glasses work?

The efficacy of night driving glasses is a matter of some debate. Research from 2019 indicates that yellow-tinted glasses reduce a driver’s ability to see pedestrians. Likewise, while yellow glasses can minimize exposure to blue light — which can have health benefits — it may result in a driver’s eyes simply receiving less light overall, as referenced in a 2018 article published by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Moreover, in 1997, the Federal Trade Commission sued a marketer of night driving glasses over the company’s claims that using their product improved safety when night driving.

Still, while some research indicates that these glasses may not work as intended, many drivers and organizations continue to see merit in them. For instance, drivesafeonline.org, an organization that is state-licensed to administer driving safety courses, acknowledges the mixed results of research while promoting night driving glasses to those who feel they benefit from them.

There seems little doubt that night driving glasses may reduce glare and help prevent eyestrain, but the research points to some concern that this benefit may be at the cost of better night vision instead of in tandem with it. Drivers should carefully assess the impact of night driving glasses on themselves and discuss using such lenses with a doctor who has evaluated their eye health before deciding.

The best glasses for night driving

Before making a decision about glasses, night driving or otherwise, it’s essential to speak with an optometrist who can adequately evaluate your vision health and needs. Barring special circumstances, including health conditions, the best night driving glasses may be those that combine several mechanisms synergistically in their design. For instance, you may want to focus on yellow-tinted, polarized high-definition lenses with antireflective coatings.

If you intend to use prescription lenses with your night driving glasses, you may want to ensure they have an antireflective coating. Prescription lenses are often thicker than others and can be more prone to reflections on the surface of the lenses. Using an anti-reflective coating may help to reduce this problem, thereby enhancing clarity of vision and reducing eyestrain. 

While many night driving glasses use an antireflective coating, they are not the same. Night driving glasses are predominantly indicated by their yellow or amber tint, with polarization and antireflective coatings being additional features they can have. Likewise, prescription glasses and sunglasses may also have antireflective coatings applied to them. On their own, without antireflective coatings or polarization, night driving glasses primarily function by reducing the amount of high-intensity blue light that reaches your eyes. That, in turn, is thought by some to help with glare, eyestrain and contrast.

Health conditions that can make it difficult to see at night

There are many ways that health can reduce night vision in individuals, ranging from eye health conditions to vitamin deficiencies. The health conditions listed below may not be exhaustive, but each can affect your night vision negatively:

Nyctalopia is also known as “night blindness” and is characterized by having difficulty with vision in low-light settings but not in standard-light settings. This condition causes the eyes to take longer to adapt from higher levels of environmental light to lower ones.

Cataracts are cloudy portions that can develop over the eye lens and are relatively common as we age. Cataracts can impede night vision by reducing clarity of vision and making some of your field of vision blurry or hazy.

Vitamin A deficiency can result in eye complications, with extreme conditions potentially resulting in total vision loss. This vitamin is used by the eyes to create some of the pigments needed for our eyes to properly receive light in darker settings.

Excessive sun exposure can contribute to the development of several eye health conditions, including cataracts, pterygium, macular degeneration, photokeratitis, climatic droplet keratopathy, squamous cell carcinoma of the conjunctiva and photoretinitis. Each of these conditions can negatively impact vision in different ways.

Retinitis pigmentosa is a genetic condition that causes the slow destruction of cells within the retina, eventually leading to blindness. Early symptoms often begin at a young age and include the loss of night and peripheral vision.

Diabetic retinopathy results from damage to the blood vessels leading to your retina. This condition can occur from high blood sugar in people with diabetes. Over time, the vessels in the eye become increasingly damaged, leading to blurry vision and small bleeds within the eye that can cause visual obstructions.

How to see better at night

Night driving glasses are one approach to enhancing vision in the dark, but there are others. There are several recommendations worth considering if you want better night vision:

See your optometrist for checkups: The first line of defense against ailing vision is to see your eye doctor regularly. These experts are trained to spot, diagnose and treat a wide variety of eye health problems that can significantly impact your night vision.

Keep up with any relevant medical conditions: Staying on top of your treatment plan for any health conditions that could affect your vision is essential to maintaining or improving your night vision. That may involve medications, prescription glasses, both or neither. For instance, simply addressing a vitamin A deficiency may improve a person’s night vision.

Don’t look directly at bright lights: Staring into bright lights causes the pupil to shrink, reducing the amount of light it can receive. This is useful when surrounded by bright light but counterproductive in the dark, where a bigger pupil will allow for better night vision.

Take time to adapt to low-light settings: Our eyes take time to adjust to different light settings, especially as we age. When entering a dark setting from a bright one, try giving your eyes a few minutes to adjust before you rely on them for night driving.

Stay hydrated to prevent dry eyes: Dry eyes are another difficulty that becomes more common with age and can contribute to poorer night vision. Staying hydrated can help our eyes produce the tears they need to maintain moisture and prevent dry eye.

How to stay safe when driving at night

When it comes to night driving, there are several steps that drivers can take to stay safe while driving at night. Many of the following recommendations involve a certain amount of proactive maintenance, both on ourselves and our vehicles:

Keep windshields clean: Clean windshields help reduce vision obstructions and prevent visual distractions that can reorient our depth perception.

Keep headlights clean: Headlight casings can become dirty and scuffed over time, reducing the brightness of our headlights and affecting how well our vehicles highlight objects ahead.

Use appropriate headlights: When driving in the dark, high beams, also known as brights, can be beneficial. These lights emit much more light and cover a broader terrain, extending our vision. Avoid pointing these brights at other drivers, and do not use them in rain or fog, as they can obstruct vision in those conditions.

Don’t stare into headlights: Staring directly into headlights can reduce your night vision and cause temporary blurriness and afterimages (an image of something you seem to see even when you’re done looking at it).

Check headlight alignment regularly: Car headlights can come out of alignment with normal wear and tear, causing them to point away from where you want them to. A mechanic can check and correct your headlight alignment to optimize how well they work.

Reduce interior lighting: Bright interior lights while driving at night can cause glares on the inside of the windshield and make it difficult for your eyes to maintain night vision.

Wear proper, clean eyeglasses: If you need corrective lenses, it’s vital when driving at night to ensure you are wearing your glasses, that the prescription is up to date and that the lenses are clean.

Maintain alertness: Drowsiness may be one of the most significant risks of driving at night. Falling asleep at the wheel can be incredibly dangerous, so keeping awake and alert is vital.