[DRC]

Polaroid glasses do work great. They are effective
1. when it is raining in day
2. avoid glare on the wind shield particularly in beige interior vehicles
3. fog in day time

They appear to help in night avoiding glare from headlights of on coming traffic, but they actually cut the amount of light and you will not be able to see pedestrians and trees etc so avoid wearing at night

I have 2 pairs of them and enjoying them since 4 years

[kirans]

Polarization of Light:

Light waves (electromagnetic waves in fact) have oscillations in two orthogonal (at right angles) directions. Special sheets - called polaroids have the effect of allowing the oscillation at one particular direction to go through, and blocking the other. Hence light passing through a polaroid sheet is said to be polarized i.e having oscillations only in one direction.

Light reflected by water:

Light reflected by water is polarized as well. To really experience this, if you live near the bay, try this - Hold your polaroid sun glasses in front of your eyes and look at the water on the bay. Slowly rotate the sunglasses and you will notice that the brightness keeps reducing upto a certain level and then starts increasing again. This demonstrates that reflected light is indeed polarized. It also helps to prove that your "polaroid" sunglasses indeed are what they claim to be.

During rains, light reflected by water glares vision and makes for poor visibility. In theory polaroid glasses should block away some of this reflection and help reduce glare. However in practice, this might always not be the case, because you are looking at light reflected at various angles, from the windscreen and from water on the street, some of which might be blocked by your sunglasses and some of it might not. So, in practice it might help, but as the saying goes - your mileage may vary.

Sorry for the longish post, but I thought I might add a little bit of polarized light to the subject.

[shajufx]

Originally Posted by DRC

They appear to help in night avoiding glare from headlights of on coming traffic, but they actually cut the amount of light and you will not be able to see pedestrians and trees etc so avoid wearing at night

Oh thats more scary to think about. I rather tolerate the fog or rain than killing someone or crippling someone infront of me .

[vnabhi]

Man, ever since I've read this thread, I've been keeping my sun glasses ready to draw from my holster faster than Billy the Kid or Quickdraw McGraw, but darn, it aint raining in Hyd.

[mithun]

Enquired the price of this since I wear spectacles : Carl Zeiss Lenses - AR Coatings, Laser - Clarity Lenses, Binoculars - Nature Observation,Special Lenses

Price : Rs. 4200-4500(lenses alone)

Is there any other cost effective options ?

[beejay]

Originally Posted by mithun

Enquired the price of this since I wear spectacles : Carl Zeiss Lenses - AR Coatings, Laser - Clarity Lenses, Binoculars - Nature Observation,Special Lenses

Price : Rs. 4200-4500(lenses alone)

Is there any other cost effective options ?

Also inquire on the Essilor range of drive wear lenses. However they should fall in the same range too.

Are the prices mentioned for Carl Zeiss skypol lenses.

[kaushik_s]

Another very good use of polariser powered Sunglasses I found was in Ladakh. The bright sunlight sometimes bit too glaring but with the Sunglasses the scenery was much more soothing and totally enjoyable. My friend had a normal Sunglass and tried that too but it was not as effective as mine. In-fact, after coming back from the trip my friend also ordered similar pair of glasses.

[VEA]

Guys. This really works with some tints of polarized sunglasses. I have been driving around in heavy downpour wearing my oakley squarewire brown tinted ones for many years. Its also very good in low light conditions and twilight hours, but not at night. what it does is it clears out the haze during heavy downpour. This helps improve visibility, can spot potholes filled with water much quickly etc. It helps a lot when you have dark tinted sun film on all sides, and during rains you get too much light through the front windscreen. The sunglass will help balance the light conditions inside and outside.

One downside of wearing a dark sunglass in heavy rain is that people might wonder why this guy is wearing it in rain.

I have tired wearing my polarised oakley juliets blue shades, but it wont work the same way. Its too dark and has very poor visibility in rain. So may be, you need the right transparency and the right tint for it to work. But it defenitely works. This is my opinion based on my experience and i'm not sure if its technically correct.

[rkavthekar]

Originally Posted by ASHISHPALLOD

Same case with me.
Earlier, i was using day & night glasses and problem is that it does not become dark when i am in the car.
I told this problem to my optician and he made special dark glass spect for me.
It is as good as sun glass.

Ashish, polarized priscription lenses are available in the market and that can probably help you. I use a one, but got that done in US. Here is a link to the website.
SunRx Polarized Lenses by Vision-Ease

It definitely helps a lot while driving with cutting out lot of glare. Its not only useful in rainy season, its helpful even in summers.

takecare and drive safely

[sgiitk]

I am not too sure. If the lenses are at the wrong angle you can even aggravate the reflections. I would prefer normal sunglasses if I must wear them. I normally use Photochromic spectacles!

[throttleking]

I never noticed the difference in day time, as i always wear sunglasses while driving so if it is raining or not doesnt matter.

All I wanted to heighlight is, this solution works really well at night and when it is raining, oncoming traffic throws all the light on your windshield and the rain drops reflect light and it reflect even more when those drops breaks into further small smal drops, finally creating distraction.

However i need more confirmations on this, i wish to try it again in heavy downpour, but its not raining at all :(

[ASHISHPALLOD]

Originally Posted by throttleking

However i need more confirmations on this, i wish to try it again in heavy downpour, but its not raining at all :(

I confirm.
on 15th aug, while going toward varandha ghat, there was heavy downpour for sometime.
Though i was not driving, i was wearing numbered sunglass.
At that time, i remembered this thread. Checked the views with regular spect and dark spect[ sunglass].
The view is much clear with sunglass during downpour.

[tsk1979]

One question, Is it possible to get polaroid glasses without any "tint" or darkening, or with very minor tint (1 stop kinds)

[for_cars1]

Originally Posted by DRC

Polaroid glasses do work great. They are effective
They appear to help in night avoiding glare from headlights of on coming traffic, but they actually cut the amount of light and you will not be able to see pedestrians and trees etc so avoid wearing at night

Originally Posted by throttleking

.... this solution works really well at night and when it is raining ....
However i need more confirmations on this, i wish to try it again in heavy downpour, but its not raining at all :(

It can be dangerous to use any kind of tinted glasses during night driving.

Polarized glasses will not help during night because the artificial light generated by bulbs are not polarized. It is effective only during day because sunlight is polarized.

Laramy-K Optical Lab - The Dangers of Night Driving Glasses

[beejay]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

One question, Is it possible to get polaroid glasses without any "tint" or darkening, or with very minor tint (1 stop kinds)

The lightest available tint on polarized lenses are light brown, commonly called as Skypol fun from Carl Zeiss. Its not possible to get clear polarized lenses.