Light sensitivity and night driving

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I too hate the newer LED headlights that are a piercing whitish blue. I get the pain in my eyes that the OP mentions with these. Best I can do is look at the painted line on the opposite side of the road until the vehicle passes.

I've read where the manufacturers state that the headlights operate within normal safety parameters so as not to distract or impair other motorists, but I can't help but think that Aspies or others with light sensitivity were not a factor in their studies.

Our local ambulance service recently purchased a new ambulance and i think the LED lights get brighter with each one. These are awful. Good for visibility or lighting up a scene when you need the light...but terribly hard on those with light sensitivity. Unfortunately for those of us who suffer, these blinding LEDs are now standard on emergency vehicles. I'm not sure if you can buy a new rig that doesn't have them unless you special order it. There are also visibility requirements determined by the laws governing emergency vehicles, which vary depending on state and local laws.

I suffer from light sensitivity w/ driving at night and also from many types of florescent lights. At one of my jobs I am in florescent lights all day; and if it is a dark day with little daylight coming in the windows, my eyes are burning by noon. Not sure what to do about it though. In driving, i focus on the road in front of my vehicle and on the white line when an oncoming vehicle is headed toward me. I also tend to be a slow, cautious driver at night. It is worse in the rain because of the glare from the wet road compounded with the unpredictable light patterns. At least on a dry night i can know what to expect and what to focus on. In the rain, it all goes out the window as the light dances on the raindrops. Aaackkk.

I would agree that those with light sensitivity are not a factor in those studies, Arcnarenth. I have never met anyone else who complained of the degree of discomfort that i experience with it. I do have several family members who dislike night driving more and more as they get older and it makes me wonder if this is a factor for them. I don't remember being bothered so much when i first started driving. Only in the last 5 yrs or so. I am in my 30's.

Those "HID" lights bother me to no end as well; they are so bad i can't even look at them during daylight.
The normal trick of "just look away" doesn't work for me either, since i look with my periferal vision; looking away only makes it worse...
This is also an issue with such cars behind me, they are visible in both side-mirrors at once, as well as in the inside mirror, so there is no escape...

I wear polarised glasses while in the car; during the day i wear tinted polaroids, during the night i have extra polarisation; this helps a lot.

Another point, however, is that i often get 'flashed' while driving in the evenings (before sunset); i have my daylight lights on, but there is finaly a low enough ambient light level so i can see normally. at this point, everyone uses nightlights already and signals me to do the same.
This forces me to wear my (tinted) glasses, which in turn means i have to turn on my own night lights as well.

I have half a mind to send a letter to the consumer organisation where i live to ask for clarification; the law states that car lights "may not be a hindrance to other drivers". If 80% of cars in any situation blind me if i don't use special glasses, i'd say that that is a hindrance...

^^ I know what you mean about the cars behind you. Their lights have always bothered me ever since I started driving.

I usually prefer driving at night because the sun's light bothers me also, especially at certain times of day. Sunglasses make me feel sleepy, though, so I don't use them. I also can't stand the difference between the light in front of me and the peripheral light. Now, with the LED lights, it is a bit harder to drive at night. Fortunately, I live in the country so I don't have to deal with a tremendous amount of traffic.

How many of you have blue eyes? Blue eyes are more sensitive to light, but obviously we are all more sensitive than other people if the LED lights have passed the tests...

I also have problems with fluorescent lights. They seem to dry out my eyes or something. My eyes sting and I have to blink a lot. If I spend a lot of time under those lights, I start to look like I'm about to cry. If there is *any* natural light in the room, it offsets the effect of the fluorescent lights. The hum of fluorescent lights also aggravates me. They are evil, LOL.

well, my eyes are half blue and half green (divided in 'rings', from the pupil out, i got a ring of green, a line of brown and then a ring of blue).
I also have the ability to see color under starlight (moonlight is no different than sunlight for me; it's even better since it's not as bright).

I have heard that blue-eyed people are more sensitive to light, but my mother has light-blue eyes and is blind as a bat from dusk till dawn, and some of my aspie friends have brown eyes and report the same issues as i do, so i don't think this idea is entirely valid.

I am afraid that since you are probably in the minority, you might not get much satisfaction from this. Although i won't deny it is a hindrance. I think LED headlights on regular personal vehicles are evil things. I have no problem with them on emergency vehicles, law enforcement, even school buses--all things you need/want to have high visibility. It bothers my eyes, but since i understand that they need to be visible, i am ok with that.

In course of my job, i have been involved in the process of going over specs for emergency vehicles and there are a lot of criteria that need to be met. Civilians do not always understand why emergency services do what they do in all situations, but there is a reason behind most or all of the things including color of lights, flashers, strobe, etc. The average civilian who has not worked in the field does not realize how much difference some of this stuff makes in the course of these folks doing their jobs.

But for personal vehicles, i think vehicle manufacturing companies should do away with the vile LED lights. I cannot see any advantage to them that outweighs the disadvantage of the distraction they are on a highway.

izzeme, thank you, they are High Intensity Discharge (HID) lights, LEDs are sharp but do not project light to the same degree as HIDs.

HID lights are available in a range of colors measured in Kelvin. The higher the color temperature, the more white/blue the coloration. If retrofitted in a car, there are many issues, as there is no roadside check to measure if the lights are brighter than is legal. Basically all other drivers are reliant on the person modifying their vehicle to be competent and capable of fitting them correctly, in a non reflective housing, focusing them etc...

Glasses with an anti reflective coating seem to be the best solution.

I think people want HIDs as standard in new vehicles, instead of regular halogens for this reason:


I also have light green/blue eyes.

I understand why people might want them, as the driver.

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^^ that is why i hate seeing them though; i can't see the contours of the right car (viewers' right). is it a smart car? an SUV? a truck? no idea.
Just yesterday, i met a shovel with HIDs installed; i thought it was a normal truck, only to nearly hit the scoop; i narrowly avoided it.
if the thing had regular lights, i wouldn't have been blinded, allowing me to see the scoop...

^I find the HID headlamps in that image painful to look at. The image I posted is barely tolerable.

There is no way of knowing what vehicle those lights are attached to, in oncoming traffic or viewed from behind in the mirrors, I think perhaps anti-glare for the rear view and wing mirrors could reduce that blinded from the side and behind experience too.

Yes. I have a horrible time with that. I recently bought those "as seen on tv" persimmon colored night driving glasses and I LOVE them. They made all the difference and now I can drive at night much more comfortably. I see much clearer and the glare is cut down so significantly that it really makes the difference in whether I can drive safely at night or not. I recommend you try them. If glasses are uncomfortable for you or if you wear prescription glasses and they don't fit over them, you can get the piece that hangs off of your visor and covers the part of your windshield that is directly in front of your eyes with that yellow lens. I prefer the glasses because then I can take them with me if I have to drive a different car. But that color lens really works. It's the same color that is in my ski goggle lenses and I love them for night skiing.

I really, really like those HD lights. They would solve all my night-driving difficulties. I wouldn't have to go to high-beams at all--which would be great.

Yep...I can understand how irritating o0ncoming bright lights could be. If sunglasses solve the problem, why not go for them? Who cares what people think? You are on the road. You don't want to get into an accident. If something can prevent accident and it "looks funny," so be it!

Sunglasses have their own issues: they block the other lights, making it harder to see less well-lit objects (like pedestrians).
I do wear them, but i shouldn't have to, that is the whole point

I'm having a terrible time driving at night increasingly over the last few years.The glare is disabling and the new headlights are like daggers in my eyes.This is a great concern as I drive for work as a musician.I'm 58 by the way.Never loved driving at night but I could do it up till now.really becoming a problem.I'll look into night driving glasses or Irlen lenses.Thanks

I have the upper portion of my windshield on my pickup truck darkly tinted, when headlights at night are very glairing, I can look thru that section of the windshield and that helps me deal with the glare. When cars are not coming, my horrible depth judgement demands decent lights on my truck, but not so bright that it bothers my eyes from how brightly lit the road and objects are, such as with those darn HID lights. So I run a set of old school amber fog lamps, aimed for close range/side of road lighting. The amber tint doesn't blind me when used in the snow or any other time where as the white lights tend to bother me. Miss aimed lights of any kind, the new LED police and fire dept lights really bother my eyes. The roof strobes on school busses are not as bad if I dont stare right at them. In fact, I have an old strobe off a buss mounted to my tool box behind the cab of my truck when I am out severe storm spotting. I dont use it much, mostly if I have to pull off on a very busy road. I also wear lightly tinted glasses when at work due to the high output florescent lights they use. AD

Yes, it's always been a problem for me, since long before I knew I was AS.

Light sensitivity is supposed to be a lot worse for people who have Sjogren's Syndrome (like me), some of you may want to look into that.

I hate the HID lights too. I used to get confused and I would flash my brights at them, only to get a nice BRIGHT flash in return >_< Gee, thanks.

I had a cop pull me over once, and his headlights were so bright, and he was tailing me so close, that I actually couldn't see his red/blue lights at all! Went all the way down the road thinking this guy was just a jerk, then turned a corner, and caught a brief glimpse of his roof.

I usually night drive with my rear-view mirror permanently in the "night time" mode, but my current car is supposed to switch it on automatically (there's no manual setting), and it doesn't really work until the cars get really close =| I want to try to disassemble it so I can rig it to always be on.