I have published an article and fictional dialogue complaining about the ever-increasing brightness of car headlights in Brooklyn, New York, from the perspective of a pedestrian who regularly takes evening walks. Over on The Emu Café Social, I noted that I am not the only one to have noticed the issue. Four years to the day, I published an article about one tool I had acquired to protect me from the headlines: BLUPOND’s Knight Vision Night Driving Glasses. My BLUPOND glasses are yellow and do a good job of fighting the headlines. Unfortunately, they do have a small side effect in that they darken my field of vision. They are better for the early evening than when darkness fully sets in (which is already encroaching on the late afternoon by mid-November). The headlight problem remains a problem, but I have a new ally to assist me on my evening walks.
I ordered sunglasses from EyeBuyDirect in June 2024. I had been interested in mirrored and polarized sunglasses (instead of just polarized) and EyeBuyDirect had what I considered to be good enough prices to take a flier. I had some shipping difficulties with my first pair, but they eventually arrived and I was satisfied with my purchase.
(Note: There are no affiliate links in this article. I have no interest in whether you buy glasses from EyeBuyDirect, BLUPOND, or anywhere else. I am sure that one could find comparable frames to the ones I am writing about from other brands. This article merely describes my own story and experience.)
After purchasing my sunglasses, I decided to check if EyeBuyDirect had any driving glasses to blunt the car headlines while walking in the opposite direction of traffic in the evening. Specifically, I wanted a pair that would work better in the dark than my yellow glasses. While researching the issue, I found an EyeBuyDirect blog post recommending against colored driving glasses and for their EBDBlue 360 lenses, which are designed to filter blue light. I decided to take their advice, ordering the frames pictured (“Wit”) above with EBD Blue 360 lenses and UV protection. I do not need prescription lenses, so the frames with the non-prescription EBD Blue 360 lenses came out to about $80.
When I first tried the glasses indoors, I did not notice much of a difference. However, I do notice a difference when I wear them outdoors. The EBDBlue 360 lenses do appear to blunt the headlights a bit. This became most clear to me on the rare occasions when I am out in the evening without my blue light glasses. It can be brutal out there, see for example this photo taken on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights just past 11:00 PM on August 15 of this year.
I prefer the EBD Blue 360 lenses when it is dark to my yellow-tinted BLUPOND glasses, although I still gladly take the BLUPOND glasses over having no glasses (I recently wore my mirrored sunglasses one night when I had not brought my EBDBlue 360 glasses, preferring the darkness to the headlights). The EBDBlue 360 also work well enough when the sun is still out but waning in the late afternoon, although they are no substitute for real sunglasses (the same could be said of my BLUPOND glasses in that area, albeit they blunt the Sun a bit more).
Just as I did back in 2021, I recommend headlight blunting glasses for pedestrians who, like me, sometimes walk facing the blinding headlights of on-coming traffic in the evening. EyeBuyDirect’s EBDBlue 360 lenses do a good job of softening the impact of headlights without darkening my vision overall (with that being said, I still recommend not staring directly into the blinding headlights, treat them like the Sun). My review comes with a couple of caveats.
- I tried the EBDBlue 360 because my first glasses-buying choice was EyeBuyDirect (for price reasons and because I had a coupon), and EyeBuyDirect recommended them for my general use-case. I am not a glasses reviewer and do not claim to have tested a variety of lenses for headlight-fighting purposes.
- I do not wear prescription glasses or contacts, so I cannot assess the EBDBlue 360 or any other lens from the perspective of someone who needs glasses to see well.
- I do not drive, so I cannot weigh in on whether the EBDBlue 360 lenses are a good choice for drivers. I will note, however, that the blog post which inspired me to try them was written as a recommendation for driving.
While I am satisfied with my two current options for filtering the headlights on late afternoon and evening walks, I will submit that pedestrians should not have to wade through fog lights in the middle of New York City at night. As Nate Rogers reported in The Ringer in December 2024, it was not always like this. I was not crazy. Headlights used to be reasonably bright instead of blinding, and drivers used to routinely dim headlights when driving on city streets. While I am not holding my breath, I hope that headlight sanity someday returns and renders yellow lenses and EBDBlue 360 lenses more of a nighttime fashion choice than a meaningful quality of life improvement for evening walkers.
