The poet T. S. Eliot once said that the journey, not the destination matters. This sums up why some travelers prefer long road trips. For many of them, the destination is just an excuse to see the country up close and personal. The United States spans four time zones and has a great diversity of landscapes, parks, towns, local history, culture, and people. Your particular road experience will depend on your choice of route. If you’re unsure about where to go, there’s no shortage of cross-country route recommendations online.
Set aside a month or maybe two for your journey and bring along some real maps. The screen on your mobile or GPS device is too small for viewing the big picture of your planned route. Maps also serve as a reliable backup should your trusty gadgets fail you. Because your trip is largely experienced through the eyes, your choice of eyewear is equally important. It greatly affects your enjoyment, safety, and comfort. Here are three eyewear selection tips:
The frame affects both comfort and safety. A fit that’s too tight may cause pain from the temples pressing against the side of the head near the ears. A loose-fitting pair of prescription glasses demands constant readjustment each time it slides down the nose. There’s also a greater risk of the eyewear dropping off your face onto the ground. Proper fit isn’t the only comfort factor, a frame’s weight may cause eye dent discomfort at the bridge of the nose. Look for a durable yet lightweight frame.
Make sure the frame style doesn’t block your peripheral vision. Frames with overly thick temples and designed for flat lenses impede your side vision. This is especially important at intersections when pulling into traffic. The eye’s ability to detect motion at the periphery has prevented many accidents. You want to retain this by choosing wraparound frames. The wraparound style also blocks light and glare coming in from the side. Likewise, avoid styles designed for small lenses, which allow too much light into the eye around the edges of the lens.
Tints
Gray and brown are the best colors for driving. Gray cuts down light intensity without altering your color perception. Brown is reasonably color neutral but also enhances contrast. However, the difficulty of fixed tints is that they’re only optimal for specific lighting conditions. A dark tint works well for the midday sunlight but less so for dimmer conditions. Besides buying multiple glasses, an alternative is using transition or photochromic tint lenses. These accommodate changing light by varying their tint levels. Be aware that many of these lenses are UV activated, which means they won’t work as designed inside your car because your windshield blocks UV light.
However, newer transition lens technology do not rely on UV. An example of this is Nike prescription sunglasses with Drivewear lenses. These go beyond normal transition lenses in that they also change color for better vision enhancement in different lighting conditions. They adjust to fog, haze, overcast clouds, as well as to varying intensities of direct sunlight. The lenses are also polarized for exceptional glare reduction.
Two important coatings are anti-scratch and anti-reflective. If your lens is a plastic such as CR-39, polycarbonate, or Trivex, an anti-scratch coating will prolong its useful life. Plastics generally lack the scratch resistance of glass and should have a scratch protective coating. Scratches thoroughly degrade optical clarity, increase glare, and are a common reason for retiring lenses before their time.
An anti-reflective coating reduces daytime glare (and UV) caused by sunlight reflecting off the inside lens surface into your eye. An anti-reflective coating is also recommended for your night driving prescription glasses. It reduces halo and star burst glare from the headlights of oncoming traffic.
The increased comfort of proper eyewear reduces driving fatigue, which increases your driving enjoyment and alertness. If you’re planning a cross-country adventure, hit the road with Nike prescription sunglasses. For assistance in eyewear selection or in choosing options, don’t hesitate to contact us.
