Compared to older halogen lamps, the current generation of car LED headlights produce whiter and more focused beams. Older drivers can take nine seconds to recover from the glare compared to one second for younger drivers. The proliferation of SUVs with headlights higher off the ground has further escalated the safety risks.
Research conducted by the UK Department for Transport concerning headlights ‘dazzling’ motorists has led the Government to consider what can be done to overcome this problem.
One dubious solution much heralded by eyewear suppliers and retailers is yellow lens eyewear. It’s a long-standing debate whether yellow lenses are helpful for driving at night and whether they cut the brightness of modern headlights.
In daylight a yellow lens is high contrast; a light “lifting”, light enhancing lens that’s ideal in dull, cloudy, overcast conditions. But the benefits of using a yellow lens for night driving are far less clear cut. This is our take on the pros and cons of using a yellow lens for night driving:
- if you are driving at dusk or twilight they will help
- a yellow lens is still a tint and as such will limit some light entering the lenses so they cannot possibly be as good as a clear lens in dark, night-time conditions with no ambient light
- on pitch dark, unlit roads, a yellow lens will not help and is not advisable