The Little-Known Trick That Can Reduce Glare From LED Headlights

When behind the wheel, effective headlights can make the difference between life and death. LED bulbs, especially, are good at increasing visibility, ensuring no obstacle gets in your way on dark or poorly-lit roads. However, from a driver's perspective, the headlights of others can be a nuisance. In recent years, LED headlights have become remarkably bright (though that could change) and prevalent on cars and trucks alike, taking us further from the days when all cars had the same headlights. These can temporarily blind oncoming drivers who don't know how to protect themselves from their glare. Fortunately, avoiding the eye strain from such lights isn't impossible, and can actually be avoided using a simple trick.

To pull off this headlight-combatting trick, all you need to do is know how to adjust the brightness on your dashboard display. If you keep it at a lower brightness while driving at night, your eyes will have an easier time adjusting to bright oncoming headlights once they appear, as this improves the contrast between the two light sources. It's also in your best interest to keep your windshield free of fingerprints and other smudges. These imperfections can amplify the effects of headlight glare, so taking a microfiber cloth and windshield-safe cleaner to wipe the windshield down regularly will come as a huge benefit to your eyes.

This is just one method of protecting yourself from eye-straining car LED headlights and one of many key safety tips for driving at night. There's another easy trick you can use on the road to reduce their impact on your vision while driving that doesn't involve any in-car technology altering.

As mentioned, as helpful as LED headlights are, for those staring at them, they're a clear danger. Despite this, many drivers, especially those new to the road, can feel like they have little choice but to contend with them to keep their eyes on the road. Thus, keeping the windshield clean and lowering the dashboard brightness are basically necessary for nighttime driving, though they can be helped out a bit. For drivers who are more comfortable momentarily moving their eyes away from their mirrors and the road directly ahead of them, a quick vision shift can be great for dodging LED headlights.

When a vehicle with LED headlights approaches, simply look to the white line on the far side of the road near the shoulder for a moment. Once the vehicle passes and the lights are no longer in your face, go back to watching the road as normal. You don't want to look so far away that you lose sight of the road, but just far enough that your eyes don't take the brunt of the headlights' brightness. If this isn't enough on its own, with the aid of nighttime driving glasses, which are specifically designed to reduce headlight glare in the evening, you'll be as safe as currently possible from LED-induced vision distortion.

LED lights are as effective at improving visibility as, ironically, they are at reducing it. It's all a matter of perspective, so if yours happens to be that of the viewer and not the user, make sure to protect your eyesight in any or all of the ways outlined.