The Dangers of Driving Without Wearing Polarized Sunglass Lenses

Who would have imagined that stepping into a car without polarized lenses could be dangerous?

These dangers are real due to the amount of glare refracted off a horizontal surface like a road, or snow covered road, and it’s significantly higher than an ordinary situation. Additionally a car’s interior, including the dashboard, can reflect light worsening the light sources while driving.

Continual driving in glary conditions can cause eye fatigue leading to driver drowsiness; this is a highly documented contributing factor in car accidents and fatalities. Late afternoon sun, moments of intense glare, and driving close to water surfaces can all cause moments of blinding that effects driver safety. Glare from the sun has been quoted as a key reason for car crashes worldwide. The basic step of wearing polarized sunglass lenses is a practical approach.

Driver Reaction Times

“Reaction times for drivers wearing polarized sunglasses are up to 20% quicker compared to driving without any sunglasses and up to 40% quicker than with ordinary sunglasses. Faster reactions mean that stopping distances are shorter – by up to 6 metres – compared to driving with non-polarized sunglasses, and as much as 3 metres shorter than driving without sunglasses.” Results from a Polaroid study found. (Test results available at polaroideyewear.com)

So what are polarized lenses?

Basically, a polarized lens has a specialized coating that is typically injected into the middle of the lens that is polarized vertically. Visible light waves come from all directions and when this fragmented light connects with a horizontal lens plane, high levels of glare occur. A polarized lens reflects the light off the surface of the sunglass lenses, blocking the fragments of light entering the eyes and reducing the overall glare. This greatly reduces harmful UV light allowing the human eye to see contrast and images with much greater clarity than a regular lens as can be seen below.

Given the many benefits of polarized sunglasses it’s no wonder they’ve become a key competitive edge for sports sunglasses. Companies such as Oakley, Rudy Project and Arnette provide a huge range of polarized lenses for their sports sunglass range. Once you’re accustomed to wearing sunglasses when driving or outdoors it can become uncomfortable and dangerous to be driving or playing sports without the usual UV protection that your eyes get used to. The answer is to have multiple pairs of good quality sunglasses on hand for every situation. To buy sunglasses online is an easy and usually cost effective way to ensure you have enough pairs of sunglasses for all your daily activities.