Driving with night vision glasses and no headlights on?

[Erki]

Anyone tried this? Does it work?

[Daniel]

It might be a problem when someone else crashes into you because they can't see you :)

Does anyone use night driving glasses like these?

http://www.polarizedoptics.com/catalog/images/N215%20ND.jpg

Been wondering if I should get some :)

[A.F.F.]

Have you ever tried night goggles Erki? And if you have, have you ever experiienced how it affects your vision when an instant strong and bright light catches your goggles. You know, like a car with long beams on ....?

[Mark]

Useful if you are trying to evade enemy capture I suppose.

[airshifter]

Anyone tried this? Does it work?

I haven't done it personally, but I've been in military vehicles blacked out and the driver using night vision devices.

Once on training they were training the guys to use motorcycles the same way, it was a riot. With a lot of night vision stuff you often can't tell a shadow from a hole. Walking in certain conditions can be tricky, but riding a motorcycle in them is not a fun thing I'm sure.

[Tomi]

it works fine

[Rani]

it works fine
The short answer implies it was done in the military, was it?
Could you tell what sort of vehicle and instrument were you using?
My friend once tried driving a combine harvester with night vision, but the glare from the raked windshield made it impossible.

[tsarcasm]

wouldn't a limited depth of field, make high speed travels impossible..

[Zico]

It does work depending on various factors, I remember reading of some SAS guys on an excercise doing this very thing in the early hours, a patrol car was stunned to see a car roar by at a crazy speed with no lights on only to find out what was going on after they finally decided to pull over and explain. I believe they were not prosecuted either!

I know a little bit about NV due to being an active member of the hunting comunity. Presently there are four known generations of nightvision and new emerging digital type technologies emerging each with their own capabilities. Gen 1 is very limited in range and capability and relies on external light sources such as moonlight or an IR beam to illuminate to be of any use. Gen2 is more capable and can see much further although again Infrared light sources are often used to increase usable ranges,
The new digital type NV currently emerging is considered to be as effective as Gen2, more reliable and a longer life with the added bonus of not having a tube that will burn and can also be connected to a digital recording device.
Gen2 + has a feature called autogating where the sensitivity automatically instantly turns down the sensitivity to avoid whiteout and this also protects the tube from burning dark spots into it effectively a type of auto exposure.
Gen3 has twice the resolution, autogating and again its range can be further increased with additional IR light sources or IR wide beam lasers.
Gen4 also has thermal imaging superimposed/mixed with the NV images and is what the elite units in most armies will use today.

Glare on the winscreen would be an issue unless you could have incoperated IR light source switched off or maybe had externally mounted IR lights/lasers to get by this problem. It would probably be do-able with Gen 2+ and an external IR light source and just maybe Gen 3 and 4 without, although it would be recomended.

[tsarcasm]

very cool technology, thanks for the info, we can dream of such toys :)

[Tomi]

The short answer implies it was done in the military, was it?
Could you tell what sort of vehicle and instrument were you using?
My friend once tried driving a combine harvester with night vision, but the glare from the raked windshield made it impossible.

Yes military stuff, my friend bought from the flee market in Helsinki, they work good but it has to be dark as possible, we once did drive in middle of the night in countryside where was no streetlights and no other traffic, beats rollercoster anytime.