Driving at night can get more challenging as one ages and eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I have also noticed that it seems to affect more women than men. And I had joined that group. It came up in conversation the other evening at dinner. One woman who had driven quite a way said she didn’t like driving at night and the other couple of women near her – including me- concurred. I have always felt rather ashamed of this particular ‘weakness’ as I perceived it. I can drive at night and do frequently, particularly as I do not drink and am therefore designated driver, but I find I don’t see as well as I feel I should, headlights seem dazzling, distances harder to judge and I find it tiring.
A male friend then told us that it was a biological fact that it is harder for women to drive at night than it is for men and went on to provide a detailed explanation of the differences between men and women’s eyes mentioning cones and rods. Why was this something no one knew? I asked whether this difference was an example of those biological differences, genetic adaptations suited to specific roles thousands of years ago but that still impact how we behave now. He thought so but by then others at our end of the table had moved on to other topics so I thought I would do a bit of research myself.
And then as these things so often happen, the very next day I was reading Milli Hill’s excellent weekly newsletter (the Nosebag) and in it I find a small piece on people not liking to drive at night! In it she writes,
“This week a new survey found that four out of five drivers are concerned about the impact on their driving of glare from modern headlights. And interestingly, this is a problem that seems to affect women more than men – for example, a government funded study by TRL found that found that 44% of female drivers believe most headlights are too bright (versus 29% of males), and 45% report regularly getting dazzled by oncoming traffic compared to 33% of males.”
But Milli hadn’t been to my dinner because she continues,
“Why? We don’t know. All we can say is that more women ‘report’ it being a problem. This could simply mean that women are more likely to voice their concern. Or it could be to do with differences in height, or safety awareness, or pupil mechanics.”
After reading this I delved into the search engine and couldn’t believe how under researched this topic is. Why have we, and I include myself, assume that our eyes are exactly like men’s eyes when so much else about our physiology is different? The first few searches brought up the ever-present AI response which denied that there were differences in night vision. Never trust AI 100% – because the research wasn’t there in its catch it assumed that there were no differences. I did several more searches before I found a page on a website of an ophthalmologist which was music to my ears…
“When it comes to night vision, men often have the advantage. Men generally possess more rods in their retinas, the photoreceptor cells responsible for vision in low-light conditions. This gives them better night vision and makes them more adept at seeing in the dark.”
My dinner companion was right – men have more rods in their eyes! And that is why it is more challenging for women to drive at night. Who knew? Obviously ageing eyes and accompanying poorer eyesight are also a factor and this impacts both sexes.
It transpires there are several ways in which men and women’s eyes differ. I am going to quote from the ophthalmologist ( more detail in the link at the end of the post) who infers there is a lot of research on this topic – back to my search engine!
Firstly we see colour differently due to our different chromosomes, which determine the number of cones we have in the retina. Here women have superior ability to distinguish between subtle shades of colour. I found this Youtube video explaining this
https://youtube.com/shorts/AfD8bG-W8_Q?is=DdEGc_bUi3IbtBj9
Secondly women have better peripheral vision than men – thought to be an evolutionary adaptation that allowed women to be more aware of their surroundings when gathering food and watching over small children
And thirdly men and women also differ in their sensitivity to motion. Men are typically more sensitive to detecting movement within their field of vision, especially when it comes to tracking fast-moving objects. This difference is again linked to evolutionary roles where detecting and responding to movement was essential for hunting and survival.
Women, however, tend to be better at noticing subtle changes in visual scenes. This heightened sensitivity to visual details may contribute to better facial recognition and the ability to detect minor changes in their surroundings.
All the above differences are thought to be due to genetic adaptation to increase our chances of survival. Life today may be very different from when we are out in the wild thousands of years ago, but our bodies and the physiological differences in the sexes have not changed that much.