Ruby lenses and traffic signals

[Jason Vollrath]

just read somewhere that ruby, g26, and amber polarized shouldn't be worn for driving due to traffic signal recognition problems. is this accurate?

 

[kronin323]

No.

 

[Jason Vollrath]

ok saw it on an ebay listing for ruby lenses....just some disclaimer stuff? legit lenses? ebay #
251696513098

 

[Oakley G]

No issues with Ruby or the amber polarized. Back in the day Oakley advised against using G26 as a driving lens because of the traffic light issue, but most people don't seem to have an issue with that.

 

[BHarry]

ok saw it on an ebay listing for ruby lenses....just some disclaimer stuff? legit lenses? ebay #
251696513098

Wow, first I've seen of that. Polarized lenses do make some light sources harder to see from certain angles, but I've never felt confused by traffic lights wearing Ruby lenses...Just remember which light is where?!?

 

[kronin323]

Polarized lenses do make some light sources harder to see from certain angles

That happens when the light source itself is polarized and happens to be oriented at the angle blocked by the polar lenses. For example, some LCD screens like older gas pump displays.

 

[Carrera1963]

It's a direct quote from the Oakley material, where it does indeed state ruby and amber polarised as well as G26.

"Oakley Amber Polarized, Ruby and G26 lenses were engineered expressly for performance applications. Its optical characteristics make it unsuitable for traffic signal recognition, so you should not use it while driving."

That's from the leaflet in 5th gen Juliets. It does change from plural to singular, so it's possible only G26 was mentioned earlier - I knew the printed material was in this box so it was the only one I bothered to open!

It's pretty much a pre-emptive waiver - not only would the colour have to fool you, you'd also have to forget the order of traffic lights. In which case, should you be driving at all?!

For Ruby, it's marketed as neutral but does give a blue cast, which could make the amber light appear greener. In practice though, all it does is uniformly increase the colour temperature (increase in colour temperature means cooler, bluer colours, somewhat counter-intuitively) of everything you're looking at.

G26 turns everything but orange somewhat purple because of its intended purpose for clay shooting, so I can see why they don't recommend that for driving. But again, you know the order of the lights, right?

 

[kronin323]

It's pretty much a pre-emptive waiver - not only would the colour have to fool you, you'd also have to forget the order of traffic lights. In which case, should you be driving at all?!

Yep - lawyer liability crap. I've had no problems...