Night Driving
Help—I'm only 59 and already having difficulty driving at night! How about you? A Friday open thread...
Readers,
When I was editing Vivian Manning-Schaffel’s recent popular Oldster essay, Should I Be Home or Something, I had a note in the document that went something like, “But what about the people who don’t go out late because they have difficulty driving at night?!” By “people” I meant me.
Vivian’s piece in case you missed it:
It reminded me of a joke my dad told me years ago—something about an older woman dating a younger man who didn’t have much going for him. When her friends asked her what she saw in him, she said, simply, “He drives at night.” 🥁
Over the past decade, although the prescription for my eyeglasses hasn’t changed much, my night vision has consistently deteriorated. Driving after dark tends to be an all-out white-knuckles experience for me.
Specifically, I find it difficult to distinguish which of the many lights up ahead are near and which are far. It’s all just a canvas of darkness punctuated by random lights that all feel too bright, and whose distances I can’t determine. It’s especially bad in the summer, when there’s night construction on highways, which means even more blaring lights.
I’m overdue for an appointment with an eye doctor. (I hope to pay a visit to my uncle the eye surgeon in the new year.) I wonder whether I’m developing cataracts. I thought they only occurred in people 65 and older, but according to the National Eye Institute, they begin to form in our 40s, and can start to impact some people’s vision in their 40s and 50s.
As with so many aging challenges, I like to reach out to others in the hope they’ll tell me I’m not alone. So, in the comments tell me:
How old are you? Do you find it challenging to drive at night? At what age did that start for you? Have you seen an eye doctor about it? Have you had cataract surgery? Did it help? Do you have some kind of “smart glasses” with special night driving lenses? (Do these actually exist, or did I just make them up?)
Please, tell me everything about any difficulty you have—and solutions you found—with regard to driving at night! (Like, do “anti-glare night driving glasses” work?)
How old are you? Do you find it challenging to drive at night? At what age did that start for you? Have you seen an eye doctor about it? Have you had cataract surgery? Did it help? Do you have some kind of “smart glasses” with special night driving lenses? (Do these actually exist, or did I just make them up?)
Thanks as always for reading, being the most thoughtful, engaged, and supportive commenters I’ve ever witnessed on the internet, and for all of your support! I couldn’t do this without your help. 🙏💝
Sari, I’m an optometrist. There can be multiple causes of night vision issues. Please have a comprehensive dilated eye exam. If it turns out that you need cataract surgery, get recommendations for the best surgeon you can find— one who does hundreds of procedures a year and has low complication rates. Get a diagnosis before you invest in home grown treatments that could turn out to be useless or unnecessary.
I'll be 75 this year and I see an ophthalmologist regularly. In the office, my eyes are fine, swell, no discernable change, but in real life, I struggle! Cataract surgery didn't noticeably change my vision (I had it relatively early, but I also significant astigmatism which wasn't affected by surgery). The yellow non-glare night glasses didn't help much. The biggest change has been getting a new car! With my Subaru Crosstrek's automatic headlights (it turns the brights off when not needed, turns them on when possible), I am seeing much better at night. I've also noted that very well or very poorly lit routes are easiest for me. Busy divided highways are easier than curvy secondary routes with unpredictable headlights coming. Rainy nights are of course the worst, when even the road is glaring with light. It turns out it's not the light or dark, exactly, it's the contrast of lights hurtling towards you in the dark. So my coping strategies are to pick my routes, go a little slower on those curves, aim for daytime driving only in unfamiliar places, and rethink the necessity of my destination on rainy nights.