Dazzled by headlights? How to stay safe
Why modern headlights can make driving after dark difficult: the simple steps that can help you stay safer on the road.
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Why modern headlights can make driving after dark difficult: the simple steps that can help you stay safer on the road.
Driving at night has become a problem for me recently. On country roads I can feel dazzled and confused by oncoming headlights, so much so that I will either ask my husband to drive or try to limit my journeys to daylight hours.
I assumed that my problem was down to ageing – I recently turned 60 – but it turns out there is another factor too: headlights are actually getting brighter.
In March, Dame Jenni Murray, Saga’s beloved columnist and launch host of our Experience is Everything podcast, died after a car crash in which she was dazzled by headlights.
Meanwhile, a 2025 report on headlights by transport research group TRL, commissioned by the Department of Transport (DoT), said: “There is evidence that modern lights are brighter. At the same time, individual factors such as increasing age of drivers and diseases of the eye do make people more sensitive.”
Farah Topia, optometrist and clinical adviser at the Association of Optometrists, explains: “After being dazzled by a car headlight, your eyes need time to readjust, and that recovery window lengthens with age. In a young, healthy eye it might take a second or two.
"However, if a person is older and has eye conditions such as cataracts or early macular degeneration, it can stretch to several seconds.”
“There’s a lot you can do,” says Topia. “An anti-reflective coating on your glasses helps, as it cuts down the reflections that cause halos and light bursts.
"Having an up-to-date prescription is very important as even mild, uncorrected astigmatism makes dazzle worse.”
Many of us will have seen the so-called night driving glasses with yellow lenses for sale. But are they worth buying?
Specsavers’ optometrist Dr Nigel Best advises against them: “Evidence that they improve night driving is poor. In a simulator study, they neither improved pedestrian detection nor reduced the effect of headlight glare.
"A tint also reduces light reaching the eye when the road is already dark.”
Simple practical steps can help.
“Clean your front and rear windscreen with good-quality glass cleaner,” advises Alison Ingram-Seal, Saga’s head of motor insurance. “Replace your windscreen wipers every 6-12 months or as soon as you notice streaks.
“Also adjust your mirrors – most interior mirrors can be set to an anti-dazzle position. Shift the position of the mirror slightly upwards and backwards, so it is angled towards the ceiling of your car.
"Some cars will be equipped with anti-dazzle or auto-dimming mirrors preventing glare from cars behind you.”
Rob Heard, founder and chair of the Older Drivers’ Forum, stresses that all this doesn’t mean older people shouldn’t drive at night: “Many do so perfectly safely. It means we need to recognise that the same headlights can affect two people’s vision very differently.
“Dazzle is more than an irritation. If it prevents you seeing the road clearly, it becomes a road-safety issue," says Heard.
"Don’t try to “drive through” it. Reduce your speed, increase your safety margin and, if necessary, stop.”
The experts at Saga Insurance have more information about staying safe while driving at night, from essential car maintenance, to driving tips and dealing with fatigue.
The new Road Safety Strategy, published in January 2026, specifically addresses headlight glare and follows on from the TRL research, acknowledging that vehicle height and certain lighting technologies, including LEDs, may be contributing to glare.
It commits the DoT to research which of these factors is responsible, with the intention of proposing changes to international vehicle lighting regulations through the UN.
“However,” says Heard, “as far as I am aware, there hasn’t yet been a significant change to UK headlamp regulations or MOT requirements specifically arising from the TRL findings.”
Until this happens, I think my husband will have to continue to take the wheel for us after dark.
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