Driving asks different things of your lenses by day and by night. By day the problem is glare: sunlight bouncing off the road, other cars and water. At night it is reflections: headlights and street lights bouncing off your lenses. Each has its own answer.
What you look at when you drive
When you drive, you look at a lot of things at different distances: the road ahead, other vehicles, pedestrians, road signs and markings, and, inside the car, your speedometer, your gauges and your mirrors. Your lenses should let you see all of it comfortably.
Driving by day: glare
Sunlight reflecting off the road, other vehicles and water reaches your eyes as glare. Only a polarised lens blocks it, so for day driving polarised sunglasses in your prescription are the lens to ask about. Read how they work on our polarised lenses page.
Two things worth knowing:
- Ordinary photochromic lenses (the kind that darken in the sun) do not darken in the car, because the windscreen blocks the UV that makes them darken.
- Drivewear is the exception. It is both polarised and photochromic, and it darkens behind a windscreen, changing from olive in low light through copper to dark brown in bright sun.
Very dark tints are not suitable for driving.
Driving at night: reflections
At night, oncoming headlights and street lights reflect off the front and back of your lenses, so less light reaches your eyes. An anti-reflection coating cancels most of those reflections, so more light passes through your lenses and there are fewer distractions from reflections and halos around lights. Our anti-reflection coatings are Clarity, Clarity Plus and Iridio, and your optometrist will talk you through them.
No tinted lens is suitable for night driving. Anti-reflection is what helps at night, and it is different from polarisation: anti-reflection reduces reflections, while a polarised lens blocks glare.
Seeing the dashboard
In an ordinary multifocal, the zone for arm's length, where your dashboard, mirrors and GPS are, is the narrowest part of the lens. The Vario is our driving and sports lens: it has a wide, flat distance zone and a large zone at arm's length that is set for the distance you need. The Vario 5 is made for the dashboard.
The Vario's reading zone is small, so it is a second pair rather than an everyday one, and it needs a larger frame. Office lenses are not designed for driving.
DriveOptix
DriveOptix is our name for the two together: anti-reflection lenses on one pair for driving at night, and polarised lenses on another for driving by day, added to our two-pair deals.
Is it time for an eye test?
Your lenses can only do their job if your prescription is up to date. For adults, the guideline is an eye test every year. It is a good moment to tell your optometrist about your driving: how far you drive, whether you drive at night, and what you look at while you do.
A driver's licence screening is a quick check, not an eye test, and it does not give you a prescription.
Book an eye test and we will talk you through the lenses for your driving.