Am I missing something or is this the gross miscarriage of justice that it sounds like? The driver could afford a $40k vehicle but not $20 polarized shades from Amazon? Negligence is negligence.
Am I missing something or is this the gross miscarriage of justice that it sounds like? The driver could afford a $40k vehicle but not $20 polarized shades from Amazon? Negligence is negligence.
When you're driving directly in the direction of a setting sun, polarized sunglasses won't help you at all. That's what sun visors are for, but they won't always work if you're short, and can block too much of the environment if you're too tall.
The only truly safe answer is really to pull to the side of the road and wait for the sun to set. But in my life I've never seen anybody do that ever, and it would absolutely wreck traffic with little jams all over the city that would cascade.
First of all, polarization is irrelevant when looking at the sun. It only affects light that is reflected off things like other cars' windows, or water on the street. In fact, it's often recommended not to use polarized sunglasses while driving because you can miss wet or icy patches on the road.
Secondly, standard sunglasses don't let you look directly at the sun, even a setting one. The sun is still dangerously bright.
Also, I'm assuming you get rain in SoCal at least sometimes, that then mostly dries up but not completely? Or leaking fire hydrants and so forth? It's the unexpected wet patches.
Yes, sunglasses are necessary because the white cement is blinding. That situation is literally what sunglasses are for.
But polarized sunglasses are no better than regular sunglasses in this regard. Polarization does nothing extra for rough surfaces like cement.
And you're talking entirely about reflected sunlight, which is what sunglasses are designed for.
But the topic was direct sunlight straight into your eyeball while driving, and sunglasses provide no help or safety here. Polarized or not.