While not everyone has problems driving at night there are ways in which you can help to improve your own driving ability at night with the simple use of sunglasses. I tend to wear my sunglasses when driving at all times of the day because I have high sensitivity to light as many others have discovered they have as well, but did you know wearing them at night could actually help to improve your driving?
Wearing sunglasses at night magnifies the available light.
The main reason I struggled seeing at night was that there was not a lot of light to draw from and as a result my eyes were not able to be as sharp as they are in the daytime. Since light at night is rather limited while driving wearing sunglasses can improve your visibility by magnifying the light that is already present. Normally your eyes have trouble magnifying the available light source due in large part to it being dark inside your car as well, but with wearing sunglasses you can create an environment which draws your eyes toward the light that your headlights as well as other cars produce, increasing your focus and visibility while driving at night. I am not saying you should wear the same sunglasses as you wear during the day because you don’t need them to be that dark. The best way to test them is stand in the store and try them on. These conditions are similar to headlights and they should be just dark enough to keep the light from bothering your eyes.
Sunglasses get rid of reflections
Often times driving at night becomes difficult because your eyes can’t focus due to the many reflections caused on objects as well as the road which will also cause you added distress when trying to focus on the lines of the road. With sunglasses reflections due to outside lights or wet pavement disappear and the deep color of the lines on the road are no longer mixed in with light reflection and if they have reflectors they stand out much clearer then without sunglasses. The worst time to drive at night is when it is inclement weather or raining, but with sunglasses all the reflections created on pavement will disappear allowing you to concentrate more on things going on around you.
Protection from bright lights
Often times when driving at night you will encounter many different types of lights, some brighter than the others and in rare cases you may encounter blue headlights which make it very difficult to see. While wearing sunglasses however you protect your eyes from the extreme brightness of some headlights preventing them from closing or squinting through reaction which can obscure your vision. In some cases people will also forget to turn off their brights and in this instance sunglasses protect you from this and allow you to concentrate while driving at night. Always remember to drive responsibly and if sunglasses are not an option ask your eye doctor if there are other ways to improve your vision when driving at night.
