Nighttime Driving: Reduce Glare & Improve Vision

With nights starting earlier at this time of year, we tend to find ourselves driving more and more at night. This can bring different problems to do with vision and remaining safe behind the wheel. Driving at night affects many aspects of vision, including depth perception, colour recognition, and peripheral vision, for which nighttime driving glasses may be the solution for you.

A few other factors can make this worse:

Your eyesight changing over time due to ageing or an underlying condition
Not wearing your corrective glasses consistently, so your prescription is no longer quite right for your eyes
Weak street lighting that doesn’t give your eyes enough to focus on
Distractions like windscreen wipers, headlight glare, or road markings competing for your attention

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents revealed in their 2017 statistics that 40% of road collisions happen at night even though 31% of people avoid driving at night.

What Are Nighttime Driving Glasses?

Nighttime driving glasses are glasses with special lenses that have been developed to make driving at night safer and more enjoyable.

If you wear prescription glasses, then they can be made with extra technology so they can be used for driving at dusk and night time. They have special treatments to reduce glare and make it more comfortable to drive at night.

If you do not normally wear prescription glasses then driving glasses can still be produced, just for you and your needs. Using the same technology the lenses can reduce glare and make it more comfortable for you to drive at night. At Opticare, we have a range of tests and digital equipment that can take measurements of your eyes and peripheral vision to produce lenses that are unique to you. Ask in store for more details.

Why Do Distance Things Become Blurred When You Drive at Night?

As we get older, the lenses in our eyes lose their transparency, which is the main reason we experience more glare at night. Also, due to it being dark and nighttime as a general rule, we tend to be more tired when driving at night, hence the need for glasses that can cope with these circumstances.

Anti-Glare Night Driving Lenses for Your Glasses

One of the top issues associated with night driving is glare from headlights and traffic lights. Glare is a light source that doesn’t help you see better but instead interferes with your vision.

Glare whilst driving on the road comes from both bright and dim lights. When the lights are too bright, it causes us to squint, and our eyes can go watery. The opposite of this can be the sudden change to dim lighting when driving, which affects our eyes’ ability to see clearly due to the reduction in image contrast.

Glare doesn’t only come from oncoming headlights; low winter sun, reflections off wet roads, glass windows, and even objects inside your car can all contribute.

In low light, your pupils rapidly constrict to adapt to a sudden light source, which can cause temporary blindness; it may take several seconds to regain full vision after being dazzled by glare from an oncoming vehicle.

Dangers of Glare While Driving

Glare is most dangerous at night, when it can obscure your vision entirely or cast parts of the road into shadow. It can affect your depth perception, making it harder to judge distances or spot how close a hazard really is, and in severe cases, it can cause double vision. The Highway Code advises drivers to slow down or stop if dazzled by oncoming headlights

If you experience blurred vision, headaches, nausea, dizziness, confusion, fatigue, or difficulty concentrating while driving, contact a doctor immediately. These symptoms could indicate a more serious issue, including stroke, heart attack, seizures, or a brain injury.

How to Reduce Reflection and Glare

Glare and reflections that are visible during nighttime driving can be reduced through specially designed lenses. These lenses have a range of treatments available that can be tailored to your needs. They provide clarity of vision, whether that’s through scratch-resistant properties or glare reduction.

Hoya EnRoute Driving Lenses

Hoya EnRoute driving lenses are designed specially for motorists, minimising the stress on the visual system, providing

a more comfortable driving experience. Combining a premium single vision or progressive lens design with a specially developed Glare Filter and an optional contrast-enhancing filter.

Benefit from:

Reduced glare and reflections from oncoming traffic and streetlights
Better contrast and brightness experience while driving in low light conditions
Clear vision in the far distance, the dashboard and in mirrors
Easy switching between distances
Relaxed and comfortable driving

These lenses have been specially designed and manufactured to reduce glare and reflections when driving at night. With nighttime driving glasses with Hoya EnRoute driving lenses, you can be confident you are as safe as possible on the road.

EnRoute lenses are suitable for all kinds of drivers, from regular commuters and road-trip lovers to people running occasional errands.

Hoya’s dedicated EnRoute driving lenses offer a clear, contrast-rich vision in the far distance, on the dashboard, and in mirrors. Drivers can feel comfortable and confident on the road, whatever the weather or time of day.

Glare isn’t the only thing that can make night driving harder. If you’re struggling to read your dashboard, spot road signs, or see clearly in low light generally, this could point to an underlying vision condition rather than glare alone; see our guide on driving and your eyes for a full breakdown.

You may also have seen yellow-tinted “night driving glasses” advertised; we explain why we don’t recommend them here.

Book an eye test

The first step in finding and purchasing the right driving glasses for you is to book an eye test at your local optician. Opticare is based in Newark, Birstall, Sileby and Anstey. You can book an appointment with us, where we can test your eyes and make recommendations based on your particular needs.