Correct Sunglasses May Save Your Life
Often people talk of treacherous driving conditions in terms of driving rain, heavy snow or mist and fog which obscure visibility of vehicles around you, but strong sunshine is understated as a potentially dangerous form of weather, where wearing the right sunglasses can be the difference of keeping your eyes on the road for those valuable few seconds where you would otherwise be momentarily blinded.
Blinding Sun
Although extensive sunlight on your car windscreen is most likely during the coming summer months, it’s actually in the winter, when sunglasses may not necessarily be at hand, that the low sunlight during peak driving times such as rush hour can cause most problems. This becomes most alarming if driving at high speeds, so it would be advised to keep a pair of sunglasses in a compartment at the front of the car within arm’s reach throughout the year.
Alarming Figures
The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) charity alerted the UK to government figures of crashes in 2009 which suggested that around 2,684 crashes in that year causing injury or death were due to sun glare, with a key fact being this is as many as headlamp dazzle and severe weather conditions put together, proof if needed that sun glare shouldn’t be considered as simply a minor nuisance to road users.
Fixed and Variable Tint Lenses
What is most frustrating about these statistics is that, with the right sunglasses, these figures would be dramatically reduced. The Federation of Manufacturing Opticians based in London has several guidelines to follow when choosing a pair of sunglasses designed for use when driving. Vision is obviously the key when deciding on a pair of lenses, although it is important they let in enough sunlight for you to survey surroundings sufficiently so you don’t have a ‘blacked out ‘ effect of many general use sunglasses which could impair overall clarity so the correct balance is key.
There are two key categories to consider when choosing sunglasses primarily for driving, which are fixed and variable tinted lenses.
Fixed tinted lenses will ensure darkness settings remain the same despite variations in lighting conditions, and can be added to prescription and corrective glasses also. Variable tint or ‘photo chromic’ lenses are more flexible with density of colour when reacting to subtle changes of UV based light due to a sophisticated chemical structure stored within them, before being restored to its original state as the source of light is dimmed or removed.
This is the reason why these types of sunglasses are generally NOT suitable for driving due to car windscreens affecting the reactions of the variable tinted lenses. It is imperative that when making the choice you speak to a qualified optician who can find variable tint lenses which are able to adjust effectively to lighting conditions when driving, and will advise on sunglasses which provide a suitable amount of light transmission for use when driving in the night as well as during the day
Tweet