In summary
- If you have started to dread the drive home in the dark, you are not imagining it – night driving becomes measurably harder with age, and the darker autumn evenings simply expose it sooner.
- Glare, halos around headlights and difficulty judging distance are common, and the most frequent cause is something entirely treatable: early cataracts.
- Do not assume it is just part of getting older. A proper eye assessment will tell you why it is happening and what can be done about it.
Every year, as the clocks go back in the autumn and the commute home shifts into darkness, I see more patients raising the same quiet worry: they have started to find night driving genuinely difficult. Headlights dazzle, road signs are harder to pick out and the confidence they once had behind the wheel after dark has started to slip. It is one of the most common concerns I hear, but the reassuring news is that it is very often something we can identify and fix.
Why night driving gets harder
Several changes in the eye happen to make low-light conditions more demanding. As we age, the pupil becomes smaller and less responsive, which means less light reaches the retina (the light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye). I often explain that a 60-year-old retina receives roughly one-third of the light of a 20-year-old’s, effectively like driving with sunglasses on.
There is also a hidden reason the problem catches people by surprise. A standard eye test measures visual acuity using high-contrast black letters on a white background. Real life after dark is the opposite – a low-contrast environment of greys and shadows. You can read the chart perfectly at 20/20 and still struggle to distinguish a dark-clad pedestrian against a hedge.
The single most common underlying cause is early cataracts – a gradual clouding of the eye’s natural lens. As the lens clouds, it scatters incoming light rather than focusing it cleanly, which is exactly why oncoming headlights produce so much glare. Because cataracts develop slowly, many people adapt without realising quite how much their night vision has faded.
When night driving trouble is a red flag
Most night driving difficulty is gradual and benign in origin. However, you should never ignore a sudden change – a rapid increase in glare, a loss of part of your field of view, or flashes and floaters warrant prompt attention. A sudden loss of vision in one eye always needs urgent assessment. If anything changes quickly, see an optometrist in the first instance; they can carry out a full check and refer you on if needed.
It is also worth knowing the legal position: you must be able to read a number plate from 20 metres and meet the DVLA’s visual standards to drive. If you are unsure whether you still do, that alone is reason enough to get checked.
What can actually be done
This is where I offer significant reassurance: age related night driving difficulty is not a one way street that ends with handing over your keys. Often the answer is straightforward. Sometimes it is as simple as an updated spectacle prescription with an anti-reflective coating. Where astigmatism is the culprit, correcting it with glasses, contact lenses or laser eye surgery can markedly reduce glare and haloes.
And where early cataracts are responsible, cataract surgery is genuinely transformative, often restoring night vision to a quality the patient has not experienced in decades. It is one of the most common and successful procedures in medicine, and the improvement in driving confidence is one of the benefits my patients mention most. If you are wondering whether it might be time, my earlier piece on when to consider cataract surgery goes into more detail.
My advice is simple. If the dark commute has started to feel like a strain this autumn, do not write it off as age. Have your eyes properly assessed – the cause is usually identifiable, and in most cases, very fixable.
About Mr Alex Day
Mr Alex Day FRCOphth PhD CertLRS FWCRS is a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at Moorfields Private, specialising in laser eye surgery (LASIK and SMILE), cataract surgery and Implantable Collamer Lens (ICL) surgery. Based in London, he is the author of over 70 peer-reviewed publications and is widely regarded as the surgeon of choice for medical practitioners and their families seeking vision correction in London. To arrange a consultation, visit www.alexday.co.uk.
