Polarized sun glasses

There is a letter in the latest BMW ON that cautions against using polarized sun glasses. The theory postulates that polarization diminishes the riders' ability to see nastly slick stiff on the road. I always wear polarized glasses under my clear helmet visor on all but the cloudiest days and have found the opposite to be true. Any road tar, oil or grease shows as a brighter blue tinged hue than without the glasses. Thoughts?

I wear polorized glasses -- the cumlative result of the glare reduction helps significantly with lessening eye strain for me after a long day. And I find that things that might ordinarily be "hidden" in the glare -- piceces of 2 x 4, for example, are more easily seen and avoided.

However, I would personally caution against glasses that totally filter out blue light. A certain amount of blue light filtration sharpens images, but too much of a good thing can be deadly.

To wit: Several years ago I received as a gift a set of "Blublockers." A cool looking set of wraparound shades, I looked at them and thought, "These will be good riding glasses."

Wrong.

What I found was that they filtered so much light out of the spectrum that I could not tell which lens was illuminated at the traffic signals. Riding, as I was, on a familiar road with the "flow of traffic," I got through the first intersection okay. And I shed them for my old shades before I got to the next one.

In photography one uses a polarized filter to eliminate reflections the same can be said for polarized glasses as the article states, but it all depends on the angle of the light source relative to the subject. This may explain why some claim to see reflections while wearing polarized glasses. Personally I do not wear polarized glasses while riding. IMHO why take a chance that the one time I come up on a slick spot, the angle of light is right to eliminate the reflectiveness of the slick spot.

I stopped use'n polarized a few years ago when I had a helmet face shield, that if used with polarized glasses produced a 60's style light show for me. Groooooove

Lens

I ride with polarized lens every day. They are great, cut out most of the glare and I see things on the road much better. About the only thing I have trouble seeing with them is the screen on my cell phone which I pull out when I'm not riding.

I use polarized sunglasses for my work as a fishing guide and also drive in my truck with them. They do give the 60's psychedelic color scheme of my tinted windows but I got used to that.
On my bike however I don't use them as they do block some of the road hazards as oil etc. Not too bad on 4 wheels but very bad on 2
I think it would be ok to use them but I personally don't since my fishing glasses are too big to look cool anyway.

For some reason the clear faceshield on my HJC helmet reacts oddly with polarized lenses. Certain colors of autos & tinted windshields give the psychodelic reaction. I was thinking that the shield was polarized & the reaction was due to the interaction.

Anyone know for sure what goes on with these things?

Gizmo said:

In photography one uses a polarized filter to eliminate reflections the same can be said for polarized glasses as the article states, but it all depends on the angle of the light source relative to the subject. This may explain why some claim to see reflections while wearing polarized glasses. Personally I do not wear polarized glasses while riding. IMHO why take a chance that the one time I come up on a slick spot, the angle of light is right to eliminate the reflectiveness of the slick spot.

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Alright, I can't figure it out, and I am the type of guy who is secure enough in his manhood to ask directions.

What does IMHO mean?

Jim

In My Honest Opinion

Re: Jim

IRONHORSECOWBOY said:

In My Honest Opinion

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LOL In my experience, people who claim honesty are often the least honest! But I am sure that does not apply to BMW owners!

Jim

sometimes,In My Humble Opinion.

jgr451 said:

sometimes,In My Humble Opinion.

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That's how I use it.

IMNSHO is for In My Not So Humble Opinion.

Word. K.

Since we are asking.

I was wondering if I was using shorthand for significant other properly. is it SWMBO? and what does that mean if correct?

Duh She who must be obeyed.From Mortimer,Rumpole of the Old Bailey.

I have a t shirt that says,

What if the hokey pokey is REALLY what it's all about?

And another that says SWMBO.

Light from the sun is for the most part evenly distributed. That is if you take a camera and look at any direction in the sky. Its light meter will have about the same reading. The reading will be different if you point your camera at the sun. I check this by standing with the sun at my back and looking through my camera at different parts of the sky.

Another thing about light is that. Light are small packets of energy that have wave like properties. Polarization allows certain light waves to pass while reflecting others.

If one was to take a long rope. Hold it at one end. And then move your hand up and down very quickly. The rope would make a wave like motion. The motion would be in the vertical plane only. But if you move your hand side to side you could make the wave move in the horizontal plane. Light moves along with the same motion. Some light waves are vertical some are horizontal. The truth it that in nature the light waves move along in a 360 degrees pattern about the center axis. Although reflected light that comes off a smooth surface tends to have a higher number of waves in the horizontal plane (glare).

Polarized sun glasses reflect the horizontal plane (glare) light. Some glasses will reflect all of the glare light. Some will not. Some will reflect some of the light that is between the vertical plane and the horizontal plane. Some will not.

All this talk and I have not even addressed the effects that different lens material has on color. Which will also effect what you see.

One thing that I can say for sure about any pair of polarized sun glasses. Is that they act on light the same way from either direction. That is if you glasses go a great job of reflecting unwanted light from the front end. They will work the same way for light coming in over your shoulder and hitting the glasses from the rear. Which in some cases can reflect a lot of that unwanted light directly in to your eye. Some sun glasses try to address this through design.

Long story short. All sun glass are not created equal. How much glare you see somewhat depends on you glasses. I use a pair of polarized sun glass here in the south west. I like them for most riding conditions. I donÔÇÖt know if I would choose to ware them on rainy days. Or if my roads had lots of oil on them.

Tinted windows tend to separate the vertical light waves into their colors. Polarized sun glasses allow you to see those colors. When I ware my polarized sun glasses I tend to relax and enjoy the light show. Although I do notice some eye fatigue due to color separation after a period of time. I guess my brain doesnÔÇÖt like seeing things that are a bit different from the norm.

You can try this at home. Take two pair for polarized sun glass and hold them one in front of the other. Then rotate one pair. The amount of light coming through the glasses should go to zero when the glasses are rotated 90 degrees to each other.

Thanks for the light lesson

Now I learned something(s) and I can go to sleep for the rest of the day.
I wear polarized sun glasses lots. My eyes are blue and very light sensitive, so I feel it is a necssity for me to have them on. This time of year on the road in Michigan I want to know what the best kind of lenses are for spotting pot holes!

A minor point but polorized lenses don't reflect light any differently than other lenses. The do absorb light that doesn't have the correct wave orientation to pass through the lens material. IOW, polarized lenses absorb unwanted light rather than reflect it.

schaeftl said:

here in the south west.... Or if my roads had lots of oil on them.

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So where in the Southwest do you live that has elves that come out and scrub the roads at night? Here in Las Vegas, we have some of the oiliest roads in creation, due to the infrequent rains. When we DO get rain, it's so slick that cages collide like bumper cars.