Blinded by the lights - night time driving

As for accident risk, around 300 accidents occur each year due to headlight glare. 91% of RAC survey responders thought headlights were mostly too bright and 45% had been dazzled by lights in their rear vision mirrors

On the other side the bright lights are a massive improvement for visibility so will also be preventing accidents. We live in a rural area with lots of wildlife who like to lurk in the hedgerows and leap,out into the road and also cyclists who like to cycle around dusk without lights and dressed in dark colours. I can definitely see a lot, lot better with my xenon lights than with my last car which had regular lights, the difference as a driver is remarkable. As I mentioned earlier I have adaptive headlights which automatically turn into corners ahead of me. These also help enormously. They can also be set to dip automatically.

I had heard that

it's A - lights are now LED bulbs which are brighter

Good point about cleaning windscreens properly. Also they mist up and demisting takes forever, which doesn't exactly help with your vision! Why do they demist quicker on the passenger side, is it because they are designed for left hand drive?

Contact mini they do a green film like tint that stops it. I found my mini was so low to the ground that SUV lights were basically eye level for me. Had a courtesy car with the film and immediately got it fitted to mine. Sadly sold the mini and bought a SUV that doesn't have the same problem. The interior lights can also be dimmed by the switch above the rear view mirror

It's 18 years old

He won't thinks it's far too small

Thanks yeah I had laser eye surgery so don’t need glasses or lenses or anything anymore as vision is all good but struggle with the glare at night.

It's a few things, IMO - lights have definitely become much brighter, more and more SUVs on the road, more drivers just being asshats and leaving their beams on, and...believe it or not, there are lots of people who don't know how to properly clean their windscreen.

Just using your wipers isn't enough - if you get into the habit of cleaning it with a microfibre cloth (and then drying it properly with another) every couple of days with proper streak-free glass cleaner, you'd be surprised the difference it makes in terms of reducing the glare of modern lights.

I do it every time I leave the house now, even if it looks clean, and it's helped massively.

Is it an actual mini or one of the new ones? They are bigger than my old polo and shine into the cockpit when I'm driving.

@justasking111 has he driven your mini to see the difference?

I'm in a mini so notice it a lot. Husband in a big 4x4 I don't notice it driving his car at all. He says I'm a bad night time driver, I'm really not, it's just those beams.

It’s also the prevalence of SUVs. If you are in a normal size car the SUV’s lights will be higher up than yours.

@pinkstinks @NotAnotherBathBomb regular astigmatism is completely correctable in glasses, it just means that one side of the cornea is a slightly different curvature to the opposite one. It's actually very unusual NOT to have astigmatism around 85% of people do.

If you're a contact lens wearer, not all types of lenses do correct astigmatism.

Modern LED lights are very bright, formation of cataracts and having naturally large pupils can affect glare, especially if you're wearing contact lenses.

interesting article.
1 second compared to 9 seconds for eyes to recover!

It's mostly A

My new car had Xenon lights as part of the package and for quite a while when I first drove the car at night id get flashed out even though I definitely had them dipped. I even got a garage to check they were adjusted correctly. Fortunately the initial brightness has decreased and I also let the headlights get dirty.
From a drivers point of view the lights are amazing. My headlights also automatically follow the bends in the road so for dark, winding country roads they are brilliant but they are too bright for other drivers.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/653793 a petition for those still dazzled a year later :)

https://www.onewomanowner.com/usedcars/avoid-blinded-led-headlights/

This says there are around 300 accidents a year.

Interesting to read how many seconds it takes for the eye to recover as you get older.

I thought this was just me!

There’s one stretch of windy road in particular that I hate driving in the dark. Awful glare, seems like starbursts on my windscreen sometimes and it’s just because of the sodding new ultra bright LEDs!

When I have someone behind me, lighting me up like the Starship Enterprise, I adjust my rear view mirror so at least I don’t get the glare from that, wish I could adjust my windscreen too!

I swear some drivers get a kick out of being behind you and dazzling you! Feels like I’m on the stage!

I do now have to slow down when driving at night, otherwise it would be pretty dangerous!

I've been to the optician recently for exactly this. The found I've got very small cataracts which affect it, plus being perimenopausal doesn't help. I've now got some glasses +0.50 with an anti reflective coating to wear on top of my contact lenses. Finding it so much better, but yet to drive on really darko country lanes as I live in the middle of a city which is so bright I could drive with headlights off in theory!

This is me. Drive a hatchback and have astigmatism. Late 30s, optician said from 40 onwards it will start to decline 😬

I find the lights really blinding. My car is 12 years old and the lights have a yellow glow, most new cars now are bright white

There’s nothing that can be done for astigmatism though right? If you don’t need glasses as your eyesight is fine?

Goodness knows. I really don't know why they are allowed but I suppose until it is proven that they are causing accidents and not just annoyance, nothing will change.

It's A, but also people drive on automatic headlights, and I don't think the car dips headlights as quickly as a human would. So C as well.

I complain about this all the time. I drive once or twice a week on a glorified country lane with no street lighting, where people think it's compulsory to drive up to the speed limit (60 for a car) even at night. There are lots of reasons why this isn't particularly safe, but the dazzle is one. My vehicle auto-adjusts and I can see it doing it, so I know I'm not passing others with full beam but because the normal light is so bright, I'm often flashed or - worse - the approaching car puts their lights on full beam as some kind of punishment. So much safer for all of us... 🙄