Driving at night

[Bill Dawes]

Driving my lovely UX tonight, wet, windy, dark roads, bright headlights, road markings worn out years ago, I decided that I am finding night driving more and more stressful. Is this an inevitable result of ageing, or wearing specs or something else.

Bill D.

[fourbanks]

11 minutes ago, Bill Dawes said:

Driving my lovely UX tonight, wet, windy, dark roads, bright headlights, road markings worn out years ago, I decided that I am finding night driving more and more stressful. Is this an inevitable result of ageing, or wearing specs or something else.

Bill D.

The same as me bill, were just getting older 

 

[David Claridge]

I’m a third one, exactly the same as both of you. However I have noticed in the last year or two that there are lots of vehicles with misaligned headlights and quite a few with fog lights on at the same time on clear nights. The road markings have got progressively worse over recent years and cat’s eyes don’t get cleaned. Budget cuts I suppose but what price safety.

[wharfhouse]

Terrible maintenance of roads - worn out white lines, unwaged signage and defunct cats eyes. Get on a new stretch of road and it's like night and day! 

[ALAW]

Same here Bill so your not alone. We aren't getting any younger.

[J Henderson]

Headlamps on certain cars (newish ones with LEDs) sure do seem mega bright when they're coming towards you.

[royoftherovers]

10 hours ago, Bill Dawes said:

Driving my lovely UX tonight, wet, windy, dark roads, bright headlights, road markings worn out years ago, I decided that I am finding night driving more and more stressful. Is this an inevitable result of ageing, or wearing specs or something else.

Bill D.

Same problem for me Bill. AGEING.

I do as little as possible.

[Mr Vlad]

Night time driving glasses is what you want. They're like sunglasses but they have a yellowish tinge plus they're polarised. They eliminate glare and improve night time sight. I've been using them for years as just under half my driving time is when it's dark. Highly recommended 👌 

[Malc1]

9 hours ago, J Henderson said:

Headlamps on certain cars (newish ones with LEDs) sure do seem mega bright when they're coming towards you.

I find this too especially .  i can cope with the old fashioned not so bright headlights beaming directly into me ok  ..  are these new lights that blind one really LEGAL  ?

Malc

[royoftherovers]

1 hour ago, Mr Vlad said:

Night time driving glasses is what you want. They're like sunglasses but they have a yellowish tinge plus they're polarised. They eliminate glare and improve night time sight. I've been using them for years as just under half my driving time is when it's dark. Highly recommended 👌 

can you recommend any specific glasses please Vlad ?

[Mr Vlad]

Hi John. Not really. Some petrol stations sell them. Some motorway services do too. Look on amazon or eBay and type night time driving glasses. Make sure they're of a yellowish tinge and polarised. No specific brand. I've seen them at around the £10 mark. Various styles. I think I've even seen them clip-on type to fit over normal glasses. 

[Chris UXe]

Hi Bill, same here now. My annual mileage was nearly 25,000 miles for a time, and quite a lot of that was in the dark, or dusk- it was getting quite stressful. The UX has cornering 'matrix' headlights which are superb- I've never had anyone flashing me to 'say' they're too bright and they do make a difference. I remember the headlamps on my Metro's (2 were badged Austin, the last one was a Rover) weren't that great! I wear glasses and also find more cars seem to have misaligned lights in general. For some roads, I'll plan to avoid as much night time driving as possible- just to make things easier.    

[Barry14UK]

There are many people who find driving at night becomes more stressful with passing years. In addition to aspects that have been raised already, good though headlights may be nowadays, there is less time to see animals that suddenly appear.  Also, spray from other vehicles makes it more difficult to see temporarily even with wipers on full speed.

I keep a pair of the yellow night driving glasses to hand and these can help in certain lights.  (Can't suggest source as bought mine from a trucker's shop in the US some years ago).  The more elderly among us may remember that at one time in France it was typical to see headlights showing yellow and I believe this was a requirement at the time. Certainly, the more powerful lights nowadays, particularly where badly focussed, can add to the problem and it can help if you shut one eye, (assuming your sight in both eyes is good) until an offending oncoming vehicle has passed.  When you then open the closed eye, you regain focus more quickly. This is something I remember from military training. 

[NemesisUK]

I remember my father complaining about the brightness of the newfangled halogen headlamps that appeared in the 70s. The old tungsten lamps were pitiful next to these new sealed beam units. As headlamps become increasingly brighter the unlit areas become increasingly darker (relatively speaking) and as one's eyes become older they cannot cope so well with the high contrast.

The old tungsten lamps didn't throw such deep shadows, they were after all only marginally lighter than the surrounding darkness! The current crop of LED headlamps are laser bright in comparison and cars approaching on an uphill right-hand bend cannot help but temporarily blind.

Never mind the all-seeing AI cameras guiding our driverless transport of the future will see us safely home ....

[Las Palmas]

3 hours ago, royoftherovers said:

can you recommend any specific glasses please Vlad ?

Hi John,

I am one of the guys not believing that reducing any colour of light will make you see better, except in bright sunshine.

Many years ago, French cars had yellow headlights supposed to make them safer driving at night. Where did they go? I have had many kinds of sunglasses including a pair of stupidly expensive Oakley with yellow night driving enhancement and they did nothing else but reduce incoming light, making it harder to see what is in the shadows, which is not exactly safe.

If you want to try out, the only glass manufacturer I would recommend, no matter for whatever kind of glasses is Zeiss.

Yes, reducing incoming bright light makes your eyes safer; yes, HID and LED headlight when wrong adjusted are extremely blinding.

No, reducing light in shadow areas do not make driving any better at all.

[Spock66]

Personally I have never liked driving at night, especially on dark country lanes.

Main beam is just about ok, but you can hardly ever use it.

[cdmaskell]

Remember the days we replaced our old headlamps, with sealed beam units. Oh we felt so superior.  I was lucky, I got mine for the MK 1 Corina I iffy.  My old man was a lorry driver for Osram GEC. 

[Rabbers]

I don’t mean to alarm anybody but weaker night vision and a tendency to be troubled by headlights are symptoms of cataracts, which is itself a condition that becomes more common with age.  If the symptoms become more marked and perhaps accompanied by others such as seeing halos around lights it would be a good idea to have a retinal test.

[Malc1]

22 minutes ago, Rabbers said:

perhaps accompanied by others such as seeing halos

and when I look in the mirror and thinking I can see that halo ...........  😇

Malc

[royoftherovers]

26 minutes ago, Rabbers said:

I don’t mean to alarm anybody but weaker night vision and a tendency to be troubled by headlights are symptoms of cataracts, which is itself a condition that becomes more common with age.  If the symptoms become more marked and perhaps accompanied by others such as seeing halos around lights it would be a good idea to have a retinal test.

My Cataracts have been done Renato and I still have trouble with the modern lights.

[m4rkw]

Not sure whether I'm just not old enough yet but at 39 and wearing contact lens I actually find driving at night much less stressful. Changing lanes on the motorway is much easier at night because headlights make cars in the lanes next to you more visible, and in general there's a lot less traffic at night.

 

[Mr Vlad]

Las Palmas John. Its fine you don't believe in night driving glasses. The main difference between them and sun glasses is the shade of the tint and the density of the tinge. Polarised sunglasses are available I know. However my 20 year experience of night driving glasses tells Me they're great (hello Tony the tiger lol).

I remember vividly in the 80's painting the headlight lens on my motorbike in a yellow paint. It was marketed for use in fog. Worked really well and was great in snow as are night driving glasses. 

[Malc1]

1 minute ago, m4rkw said:

and in general there's a lot less traffic at night.

 

we're all indoors hiding from those dastardly white piercing headlights  🥶

Malc

[NemesisUK]

As a long haired 18yr old I had all my driving lessons at night. Quite a shock when I took my test in broad daylight!

I loved driving at night, as @m4rkw mentions other cars were easier to see, especially on unlit country roads where one could easily judge if safe to take that bend on the 'wrong' side of the road. My heavily modified Imp carried six Cibie lamps. 2 x Z beam headlamps, 2 x Super Oscars and 2 x Oscar fogs. I had to upgrade the charging circuit to supply the current required. Talk about night and day 😎 

I guess my triple beam LEDs on the RX would easily outshine those 70's Cibies 

[talaipwros]

In my view, all things equall, the single most important factor is the quality of the lights and whether they are adaptive or not.

There is a huge difference between driving the Leaf vs RX adaptive LED and some signifigant difference between RX adaptive LED vs BMW Laserlights.