Driving At Night

[fdcg27]

I'll be 67 this month and my night vision is not nearly as good as it used to be.
Yearly visits to an optometrist for checks-ups. We used to see an ophthalmologist, but she retired and we can't find one in private practice in this area.
As with all things, one adapts and while I will and do drive in darkness I no longer find it as enjoyable as I once did.
Oncoming and following headlight glare is a thing for me these days and it is not unusual to encounter deer on my route to work.
Deer sometimes seem to have a death wish.

 

[svtrit]

Last night I had to drive in the dark. I try to avoid this.

If you are
Anybody else uneasy driving at night?

View attachment 181940
Senior Perspective

I only drove in areas I know at night. I may chance somewhere new if it isn’t raining, but my nighttime vision in town is very poor. Plus they don’t seem to repaint lines as often as they used to, making them hard to see.

Open country though, I’ll drive at night anytime!!

 

[SupremePossum]

A lightly tinted windshield reduces halos and glare substantially.

3M tints on my windshield for ALL my vehicles.

The tint guy told me this, and I figured it was BS. Does it really help that much?

 

[208vette]

The tint guy told me this, and I figured it was BS. Does it really help that much?

I have a 50% ceramic tint on my windshield of the corvette. It does make quite a difference at night with glare and halos, and the heat rejection during the AZ summer day is quite impressive as well.

 

[bbhero]

20/15 is better that average normal human vision. It means you can see at 20 feet what a person with average eyesight can resolve sufficiently focused to be seen clearly at 15 feet. You see doom coming a little earlier than most.

The xx/xx metric refers to each eye and not combined vision. Binocular vision generally exceeds monocular vision not only in field of view but also in resolution thanks to the image processor between our ears.

Two months before I went completely blind in my left eye 20/1000… I had an eye test done and I was 20/20 in my left eye and 20/10 in my right eye. I read every single letter on the smallest bottom line of that eye chart that day,.. Took that young lady by surprise.

So it goes without saying that 2 months later going completely blind in my left eye was quite a severe change.

One of the top 5 things I have ever done athletically was making 18 out of 20 free throws from the foul line just 3 days after being discharged from the hospital. With only my one good right eye… Not too shabby.

By the way… My personal record of consecutive free throws made was 106 straight…. And making that 18 out of 20 with a completely blind left eye was more impressive than making that 106 straight with 2 perfect good eyes.

 

[chris719]

I have a 50% ceramic tint on my windshield of the corvette. It does make quite a difference at night with glare and halos, and the heat rejection during the AZ summer day is quite impressive as well.

Yes but it’s also reducing the amount of light that passes through. I would never want my windshield tinted because of night driving. It’s illegal in many states for a reason. I’m sure it helps a ton with the heat though.

 

[vavavroom]

Two months before I went completely blind in my left eye 20/1000… I had an eye test done and I was 20/20 in my left eye and 20/10 in my right eye. I read every single letter on the smallest bottom line of that eye chart that day,.. Took that young lady by surprise.

So it goes without saying that 2 months later going completely blind in my left eye was quite a severe change.

One of the top 5 things I have ever done athletically was making 18 out of 20 free throws from the foul line just 3 days after being discharged from the hospital. With only my one good right eye… Not too shabby.

By the way… My personal record of consecutive free throws made was 106 straight…. And making that 18 out of 20 with a completely blind left eye was more impressive than making that 106 straight with 2 perfect good eyes.

I'm very sorry to hear that. Lack of depth perception at close range must suck. I almost got my right eye taken out by a rusty gardening tool a couple of years ago. I got away with a scratched and bloodied-up eyeball. It could have very easily ended badly. Keep your eyes safe, folks! While we have two it's not like we have a spare.

 

[hrv]

I am 69 and still like driving at night. The only thing I dont like is some of the blinging led headlights people are using and around here in Louisville watching out for deers....esp this time of the year...

 

[bbhero]

I'm very sorry to hear that. Lack of depth perception at close range must suck. I almost got my right eye taken out by a rusty gardening tool a couple of years ago. I got away with a scratched and bloodied-up eyeball. It could have very easily ended badly. Keep your eyes safe, folks! While we have two it's not like we have a spare.

Yeah man it’s been quite a bit interesting the last 24 years…

I had started playing volleyball 7 months before I went blind in my left eye. I started playing again three weeks after I got out of the hospital. It was very difficult to do. I felt like I was learning all over again learning how to pass the ball when it was served to me. I remember playing in a league game at that time and I had people serving the ball at me deliberately… Because I was having a hard time playing the ball. It got to me a bit. However I realized that I put myself out there.

I also never forgot either that happening… Flash forward a year later and I had learned how to play with one good eye and the other damaged left eye that had not totally come back to normal but it had much improved vision in it. Therefore that allowed me to play very good again… And I was hitting the ball a whole, whole lot harder when I was at the net… Plus I was playing with my good friends Scott and John who both were very good players and 3 ladies who played very good…

I got my redemption… My team went 24-3 and won the regular season title and post season tournament.

Not too shabby.

 

[Bailes1992]

Many of the roads North of me are empty and dark. I find that modern vehicles have way too many screens and lights. This distracts horribly from acute night vision. I can't stand internal lights at night.

Massive pet hate of mine!

My Wife's old Saab 95 used to have a button that would turn everything off bar the speedo. Absolutely loved that feature!

 

[Heywood_6078]

Last night I had to drive in the dark. I try to avoid this.

If you are
Anybody else uneasy driving at night?

View attachment 181940
Senior Perspective

Yes I am. As I've gotten older it is much harder to get behind the wheel at night.
Not to mention all of the deer in our area. They scare me the most about night
time driving. After hitting several in my lifetime, and some of them running into the side of my vehicles, I get tired of fixing, or having to get vehicles fixed after
collisions with them.

 

[Pablo]

I wore some Amazon yellow driving glasses to my 5am church men's meeting yesterday. A little weird at first, but they do cut the glare. I am surprised.

 

[SupremePossum]

I wonder how long until we don't have to drive at night. We have a Mach-E with BlueCruise and it does fantastic on the highway. Never tried it at night though, but apparently it works just the same

 

[grampi]

Not only is visibility just generally worse at night, there are factors that make it even worse. One thing is glare from bright lights. One of the most dangerous things I've seen recently are these light bars guys put on the front of their semis and pickups. They look to be about 2 feet long, and they're mounted right in the middle front of the vehicle. They appear to be an LED of some sort, and they are so bright, they blind drivers in oncoming vehicles. These things should be outlawed!

 

[brianl703]

They appear to be an LED of some sort, and they are so bright, they blind drivers in oncoming vehicles. These things should be outlawed!

They already are. They just don't bother to enforce the law.

 

[SHOZ]

I am 75 and don't mind driving at night except for the DEER!!!!

Deer are like mice around here this time of year. But I convert my fog lights to HIDs and use them as driving lights out here in the boonies. These are 35w on my Accent, fogs only.

This is the Gen Coupe with 35w low, 55w hi and 55w fogs.

Here's some deers video.

Vimeo

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Vimeo

vimeo.com

Vimeo

vimeo.com

Vimeo

vimeo.com

Vimeo

vimeo.com

 

[R18Civic]

I'm only 35 and have severe astigmatism. The glare from headlights is intense at night and when it rains I can barely see lines on the road. It can get scary.

 

[hrv]

I have been thinking of upgrading just the fog light on my 21 HRV for the reasons you mention deer... I figure I will get more light on the road and since the fog lighta are lower I wont blind someone in front of me...

 

[gfh77665]

Turned 60 Y.O. last week and zero issues with night time driving. In fact I still have 20/20 vision. Never worn glasses in my life.

 

[ecotourist]

I only drove in areas I know at night. I may chance somewhere new if it isn’t raining, but my nighttime vision in town is very poor. Plus they don’t seem to repaint lines as often as they used to, making them hard to see.

Open country though, I’ll drive at night anytime!!

This describes me fairly well. I used to really like driving at night especially in light rain. You follow the painted lines and you can really "get into the zone". I still drive at night but now find it harder.

A couple of weeks ago we went into Victoria for an evening event in an unfamiliar area of town. When we left we had to make turns at dark intersections having built up concrete dividers between lanes and numerous cyclists going in both directions in a cycle lane on my side of the road. It was madness. I'm never doing that again. No more evening events in Victoria.

In case you haven't heard Victoria is going all out with cycle lanes everywhere downtown, their own traffic lights, etc. In most traffic situations the people driving vehicles outnumber cyclists 40 or 50 to 1, but the cyclists are still getting priority.