this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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I wonder what causes this to be a problem only for certain people.
I can be in a Miata with a pickup riding up my ass and not have this problem, but my dad perishes the second the sun goes down and there's an oncoming lane of traffic, even if he's in an SUV with tinted windows and wearing sunglasses at night.
It doesn't seem to be about the height of your car relative to other cars, so maybe it's that some people are more sensitive than others to certain wavelengths of light? The color temperature seems to matter a lot, with bluer wavelengths causing more problems for affected people. Do those novelty blue 10,000K bulbs hurt your eyes more than the 6500K ones?
https://www.visioncenter.org/blog/astigmatism-lights/
But also they're bright enough that they dominate the entire field of view, and mean that you cannot see other smaller, less bright lights of vehicles that may be closer, i.e. if there's a driver with LEDs five cars back but regular cars in front, I can only see a big grey/white patch behind me with those lense flares coming out and nothing from the four cars closer
I also don't know anything about wavelengths but yes, some of them do cause physical jolts of pain when I look in the side mirrors, for the rear-view I have it constantly flicked to the high-beam reduction angle to avoid this, but then I get no LOS of smaller vehicles, bikes or scooters
In addition, I have night blindness from prescribed accutane during my late teen years for acne: https://www.ehealthme.com/ds/accutane/vision-night-blindness/ so I'm kinda all around fucked driving at night
I used to enjoy night driving, it was such a vibe, so many roadtrips and hanging out with friends, so many musicians and bands I discovered listening to the radio at 1am...
I don't have astigmatism, I just have sensitive eyes, and the oncoming bright lights are like getting poked in the eye. It hurts. It's blinding. I categorically hate people with these blinding cars
My sympathies, it really sucks doesn't it
I also have astigmatism, but my glasses are able to correct it quite substantially. This definitely seems like it would be hard to see at night with neither of those issues being mitigated. :(