Driving (sun)glasses?

[kalniel]

Prompted by the offer in bargains, does anyone have any recommendations for lenses, or information on types of lenses that are best suited for driving in sunny conditions?

Having started to need glasses for driving I'm suddenly paying attention to this kind of stuff!

Currently I've got my regular glasses which are just plain, but have great anti-reflective coatings, and freebee prescription sunglasses which are just tinted, and have no anti-reflective coatings. Generally the sunglasses are rubbish, because they just lower the contrast of everything while still allowing a lot of glare through.

Cheers

[Salazaar]

I've got a nice pair of Ray Ban aviators with a mild gradiated tint and anti-glare coating which work pretty well for me as driving glasses.

Other times I just wear contacts and whatever pair of cheapo sunglasses I have at the time.

[Barakka]

I bought some Oakley Prescription sunglasses last year... not the Oakley normal glasses frames with some tinted lenses, but Oakley shades with the officical Oakley prescription lenses which have to be made by them directly.

The design I bought (Half Jacket) has clip-in lenses, so I bought the frames with standard (non-script) lenses and then had some scripted lenses made. This way I have them in my car for day-to-day with the script lenses in and if I want to wear contacts I pop in the standard lenses.

They were VERY expensive, but this is up there as one of the best things I have ever spent my money on and I would buy them again in a heartbeat.

Half Jacket


Incidentally I work with a guy who trained and worked as a dispensing optician many years ago (he's a programmer now ) and spoke to him at length about all of this before I made my choices. The main problem with the majority of prescription sunglasses you get is that they are not tinted glass/plastic - they're normal glass/plastic lenses with a tint applied to them, which is OK for most situations, but start putting anti-glare, and anti-scratch on as well and that's 3 coats, not ideal. The best solution is lenses made directly by a manufacturer as they will use proper coloured plastic rather than an applied tint, but that's where it starts getting expensive.

In the end it depends what you want from them and how much you want to spend, my Oakleys weigh nothing (a pen drive is heavier), work equally well rock climbing, hiking, or driving to work, and will serve me well for many years.

Oh and I bought them from the company featured in the offer in Current Bargains, pretty cheap to start with, and the service was excellent !

[Lowe]

For driving, you want polarised lenses. Makes a massive difference, removing all of the reflections that you tend to get off the dash on the inside of the windscreen. Really helps with visibility.

[GheeTsar]

Prompted by the offer in bargains, does anyone have any recommendations for lenses, or information on types of lenses that are best suited for driving in sunny conditions?

Having started to need glasses for driving I'm suddenly paying attention to this kind of stuff!

Currently I've got my regular glasses which are just plain, but have great anti-reflective coatings, and freebee prescription sunglasses which are just tinted, and have no anti-reflective coatings. Generally the sunglasses are rubbish, because they just lower the contrast of everything while still allowing a lot of glare through.

Cheers

If you wish to reduce glare then you need polarising sunglasses. These used to be very expensive (only on >£150 glasses), but now you can get them for cheap on many brands. Definitely the best bet for driving.

[Barakka]

For driving, you want polarised lenses. Makes a massive difference, removing all of the reflections that you tend to get off the dash on the inside of the windscreen. Really helps with visibility.

TBH decent sunglasses will do this anyway, cheap polarised lenses can actually cause distortions and the amount of glare they reduce is not ideal due to innacurate axis mapping - you would notice this more with a prescription applied. True polarised lenses are only really useful in situations of high glare or high reflections like snowing, water sports, and fishing. I don't have polarised lenses and I have no problems with glare in normal situations.

[eshrules]

I'm no sunglasses expert, but I wear them all the time when I'm driving (and it's sunny, obviously!), so comfort and lightness is important to me, as well as clarity of vision.

I used to wear 'normal' tinted glasses, which proved to be too dark at points and I often found the sun still glared at my eyes, sort of defeating the object of wearing them in the first place.

After reading around and learning that polarised glasses can help reduce glare, I picked up a pair of sport glasses from Next. The best £12 I've spent on glasses - perfectly clear even on very bright/sunny days.

[Iron Sights]

Im a student optician btw, it would be useful to know what your current prescription is

I'm assuming that your only wear spectacles for distance???

or do you wear bifocals/ varifocal lenses

[kalniel]

Im a student optician btw, it would be useful to know what your current prescription is

Out of interest, what difference would that make? It's a fairly mild distance correction, with slight astigmatism. Can get by without but would not be legal to drive. Usual stuff really.

[Iron Sights]

It would be marginal difference tbh I only asked just to make sure you didnt have a very large presciption, which may have required thinner lenses.

but then again the darker tints tend to hide the thickness of the lenses, graded tints however may not

[GAteKeeper]

2nd on the polarised glasses, they really make driving in bright sunshine easier.

GK

[tiggerai]

I bought some Oakley Prescription sunglasses last year... not the Oakley normal glasses frames with some tinted lenses, but Oakley shades with the officical Oakley prescription lenses which have to be made by them directly.

The design I bought (Half Jacket) has clip-in lenses, so I bought the frames with standard (non-script) lenses and then had some scripted lenses made. This way I have them in my car for day-to-day with the script lenses in and if I want to wear contacts I pop in the standard lenses.

They were VERY expensive, but this is up there as one of the best things I have ever spent my money on and I would buy them again in a heartbeat.

Half Jacket


Incidentally I work with a guy who trained and worked as a dispensing optician many years ago (he's a programmer now ) and spoke to him at length about all of this before I made my choices. The main problem with the majority of prescription sunglasses you get is that they are not tinted glass/plastic - they're normal glass/plastic lenses with a tint applied to them, which is OK for most situations, but start putting anti-glare, and anti-scratch on as well and that's 3 coats, not ideal. The best solution is lenses made directly by a manufacturer as they will use proper coloured plastic rather than an applied tint, but that's where it starts getting expensive.

In the end it depends what you want from them and how much you want to spend, my Oakleys weigh nothing (a pen drive is heavier), work equally well rock climbing, hiking, or driving to work, and will serve me well for many years.

Oh and I bought them from the company featured in the offer in Current Bargains, pretty cheap to start with, and the service was excellent !

I must say that I really love my pair of half jackets too - currently got the ice-iridium lenses and they actually block most of the glare etc from driving/sunshine (that makes me sneeze - without fail!)
It's my second pair of oakleys and I wouldn't buy anything else.
I hadn't thought of getting prescription lenses from oakley - but my prescription keeps changing every 2 years at the mo so would be too much outlay on top of getting my normal prescription glasses (that I get the reactions tint applied to for the offchance that I see some sunshine in the summer - on the off day that I'm wearing my glasses)

[finlay666]

I'm getting a pair of the polarised oakleys when I get my voucher

[circuitmonkey]

When I lost my polarized Oakleys I couldn't justify replacing them (to expensive)
since then I've bought some Dirty Dogs (great for sport, haven't managed to get them to fog up, my old twenties couldn't boast the same thing) and some maui jims for driving and general posing (again polarized and some great looking glasses)
the dirty dogs where £60 (now appears their £40)
and the maui jims where £80 (now around £100)
very happy with what I have now and would recommend you look at the maui jims before you make a decision

[kalniel]

Yeah the Maui Jims look good actually, but what's this Rx thingy? It looks like you have a mini pair of glasses that do the correction sitting behind the normal ones - is it possible to just get corrective maui jim lenses without that?

edit: seems so.. for £150 extra. Ouch.

[Zak33]

Prompted by the offer in bargains, does anyone have any recommendations for lenses, or information on types of lenses that are best suited for driving in sunny conditions?

Having started to need glasses for driving I'm suddenly paying attention to this kind of stuff!

Currently I've got my regular glasses which are just plain, but have great anti-reflective coatings, and freebee prescription sunglasses which are just tinted, and have no anti-reflective coatings. Generally the sunglasses are rubbish, because they just lower the contrast of everything while still allowing a lot of glare through.

Cheers

Can I suggest that you get normal prescription glasses, and get the optician to fit proper UV covers to them?

I had a new pair of glasses last year and the deal was Buy one.. get one free.. so the second pair I had turned into sunglasses and they are DIVINE

really really worthy .... and shaded lenses, even the same shape as your normal ones, look waaay cooler