Summer is over, the days are getting shorter, the daylight less. Wet leaves make the road a slippery slope, the first night frost threatens, plus there are inexperienced ABC schoolchildren on the road in the morning. In the fall, drivers need a heightened awareness of dangers. But that alone is not enough.
First condition: clear visibility
First and foremost, drivers need clear vision. It is not only the care of the mobile undercarriage with headlight cleaning and cleaning of the windshield that is important. Vision also deserves an all-around checkup. Studies have shown that one third of all road users have poor vision.
People absorb around 85 percent of all information through their eyes. This means that those who do not have perfect vision live dangerously in road traffic. Even the best safety technology in cars and regular inspections can’t change that.
That’s why Dr. Klaus Brüggemann, Managing Director of the Verband der TÜV e.V. (VdTÜV) in Berlin, recommends regular eye tests to drivers: “Just as some defects in cars occur gradually, the visual performance of the eyes often deteriorates imperceptibly. That’s why – as a rule of thumb – motorists should go for an eye test every two years, just as the car has to be driven in for its general inspection every two years.”
So that the eye test does not fall into oblivion, Brüggemann has the tip ready to combine both and let become routine: “First the car to the TÜV, then to the optician or ophthalmologist. Both are done quickly.” If drivers have doubts about their eyesight in the meantime, they should not postpone going to the eye test, of course, but have their eyesight checked right away. To this end, Wolfgang Spinler, managing director of the Automobile Club of Germany (AvD), advises, “The slightest doubt about visual acuity should be reason enough to have your sense of sight checked.”
Tips for the perfect driver’s glasses
If the driver needs a vision correction, he should discuss this with the optician, because not every model of glasses is equally suitable for driving. The ideal glasses for driving have sufficiently large lenses, narrow frame rims and thin temples and thus hardly restrict the field of vision.
Some additional features are useful: When cars drive with lights on in the dark season and the surroundings are illuminated, anti-reflective lenses stop annoying reflections on the lens. Another effect: If the lenses reflect less, more light automatically passes through the lens and can be absorbed by the eye. When driving at dusk and at night, the eyes do not tire as quickly.
Anti-reflective lenses are available in three grades: light, normal and super anti-reflective. Lenses with this highest coating reflect less than two percent of the light.
However, lenses only offer clear vision if they are clean. Lenses that repel grease and dirt stay clear longer. The windows in the car and the rearview mirrors should be cleaned just as regularly as the glasses. This prevents glare.
Irritating reflections can also be reduced by polarizing lenses. They contain a special filter that exploits a physical effect. This is because, unlike daylight, reflected light waves oscillate almost exclusively in one direction. The polarizing lenses filter out the light with this direction of oscillation and create the optical impression that the reflections have disappeared. Reflections on wet streets, from shop windows or on metal surfaces are thus no longer noticeable at all.
