Many riders use glasses on a regular basis. These glasses are visual aids, providing them with improved eyesight in their day-to-day activities. Riding is one of the activities for which perfect eyesight is crucial.
As a result, riders dependent on eyewear such as glasses find it necessary to use them during rides. This however poses another question. Is it safe to wear glasses inside the helmet?
Glasses are completely safe to wear while riding and provide additional benefits apart from ensuring the rider has a clear vision on the road. Wear glasses that have thin side polycarbonate frame, so they can easily fit inside your helmet without breaking or creating discomfort.
It is a little uncomfortable to wear glasses inside a helmet, but after some time you will be used to it.
However, we would like to give you a few tips to keep in mind when you ride with glasses.
- Ensure your lenses are shatterproof and anti-glare, even though they may be a little expensive.
- Ensure your glasses fit securely within the shell of your helmet, without having any room to move around. Doing so ensures you are not compromising on your safety. Having frames with nose tips can be very helpful for riders.
- Clean your glasses before and after your ride to remove dirt and debris. This ensures clarity of vision while riding.
Eyesight is critical for better judgment and split-second decisions while riding. While it may prove to be a discomfort to many, especially in hot riding conditions, glasses provide an added layer of protection from dust and dirt, keeping your eyes clean and preventing distractions.
It can however have unforeseen consequences if not secure, especially in the case of an accident. Read on as we discuss the pros and cons of wearing glasses in detail, before letting you know our verdict of whether wearing glasses inside the helmet is a safe option for riders.
Table of Contents
How to pick the right frame that can fit inside your helmet?
You have to be careful while picking up frames for your glasses if you want to wear them inside your helmet, if the size or shape is not correct you will feel pain behind your years while riding your motorcycle, and then you end up spending in a wrong frame and now you cannot change it.
You will not feel pain by just wearing the glasses and then put on your motorcycle helmet at that time, you will start to feel pain when you wear the helmet for more than 15-20 minutes with the glasses.
I purchase my first frame doing this same, and end up buying the wrong frame, it started pain after 20-25 minutes. And then I have to buy another frame, this pain can annoy you so much that you will not enjoy your ride.
The first thing to make sure while buying a frame to wear inside your motorcycle helmet, make sure the material of the frame will be polycarbonate, and lightweight, because it can easily bend so that you can put them easily inside your snug fit helmet.
Heavy and metal frames will lose their shape if you do that with them and as they are heavy they cannot easily come in a straight line when you wear them inside the helmet, they always shifted to one or other side.
The second thing to keep in mind is the length of the frame from one side of the eye to the other side is not wider than your head, if it is wider than your head then it cannot get inside your motorcycle helmet and might break if you do it forcefully. Frame width will be equal to the width of your face.
The third thing is to make sure the side frame so that can easily slide inside your helmet without interfering with the side pads of the helmet, as there is very little space to move around inside the helmet.
Pros of Wearing Glasses
Visual Aid for Riders with Imperfect Vision
Many riders with imperfect vision use prescription glasses to solve the problem. They are cheap, easy to purchase, and provide a permanent solution for most people in their daily activities.
This applies to riding as well. Glasses will help the rider read road signs and navigational road markers without having to strain their eyes, and from a comfortable distance as well. They also help the rider quickly glance at displays and navigational equipment clearly. This results in the rider being less distracted.
— Also read: Best Helmet for Glasses Wearers (TOP 10 PICK)
The improved clarity of these glasses will also help them spot tiny objects as well as bumps and potholes in the road from afar. This gives them an increased time to react to these situations, improving their judgment and keeping them safe on the road.
This improved combination of factors can prove crucial, making the difference between life and death when the rider has to make a split second decision at high speeds.
Protects the Rider from Dust and Debris
Glasses are especially helpful to riders with open faced helmets or helmets without a visor. Often in hot riding conditions, drivers open up their visors, remove them, or use open face helmets to increase the airflow.
While this helps them cool down their head, it also leaves them exposed to various other elements such as dirt and debris. These foreign objects are not only distracting, but can lead to a loss of concentration which can result in an accident.
— Also read: Are Sports Bikes Good for Beginners? (7 Reasons)
The glasses protect the eyes from such factors, which helps maintain rider focus, while ensuring the ride is a comfortable one.
At high speeds, many riders face the issue of not being able to keep their eyes open due to the increased wind speeds. Wearing sunglasses or prescription glasses will ensure a rider does not face this issue, which increases the overall safety of the ride.
Protects the Rider from Glare
Glare is a universal issue faced by riders at all times of the day. During the day, riders face the blinding sunlight, which prevents them from watching out clearly ahead of them.
This is especially true during early mornings or late evenings when the sun is at its lowest and directly in your eyes.
Wearing sunglasses will help minimize this glare to a great extent, especially if you do not have a tinted visor on your helmet.
While riding in the night, the headlights of a car can be the reason for glare in your eyes. While the eyes take some time and get used to it in most cases, a car on a high beam can force your eyes to reset.
— Also read: Reasons Why are Motorcycles Allowed to be so LOUD?
This distraction can result in you failing to notice the road ahead, and cause you to veer off course and crash. This is a common occurence on single laned roads and roads with no height difference.
Most prescription glasses nowadays have the option of anti-glare lenses. While these do not prevent the glare completely, they minimize it to the point where it is no longer a distraction, ensuring improved rider safety.
CONs of Wearing Glasses
Can Distract the Rider
While riding, glasses can move around due to the wind, sweat or other factors. An improper fitting pair of glasses may also not fit well into the shell of the helmet. This can cause unwanted movement of the helmet.
This can distract a rider, causing them to lose focus and balance. In the worst cases, the consequences can prove fatal.
— Also read: How to Prevent the Damage Caused by Motorcycle Accidents, From a Rider’s Perceptive
Another issue with wearing glasses is that a rider cannot easily adjust them while riding. This is especially true while riding with a full face helmet that is a perfect fit.
A loose pair of glasses moving around will force riders to stop more often to make adjustments, which can prove to be an added source of irritation.
Can Injure a Rider, especially during Accidents
Most prescription glasses consist of durable materials such as plastic and steel. However, cheaper models may not be shatterproof when faced with a high intensity impact. This can be absolutely vital, especially in high speed crashes.
— Also read: How Safe is Motorcycling: 4 Points why Motorcycling is Safer
While the helmet will absorb most of the external impact, the glasses can shatter within. This can lead to splinters causing cuts and scars in the face and upper neck region. In some extreme cases, the splinters can also affect the eyes. The resulting damage will be serious, if not permanent.
Alternatives
Contact lenses are a great option for riders looking to avoid the inconvenience of wearing glasses within their helmets. This improves clarity of the vision like prescription glasses, without depending on an external frame.
This will also help you avoid the somewhat funny practice of wearing prescription glasses under a pair of sunglasses to ensure clear vision while riding in sunny conditions.
How do you keep your glasses from fogging up when wearing a helmet?
Fogging visors are a serious pain, but if you wear glasses inside a helmet , your glasses also starts to fog up, and this problem comes in the winter season mostly, because there is a major difference between the inside and outside temperature inside the helmet. There are some tricks that you can try to avoid such issues.
— Also read: Is it Safe to Ride a Motorcycle in the Winter?
So how do you keep your glasses from fogging up when wearing a helmet? Increase the ventilation inside the motorcycle helmet by opening the air vents. You can also try some anti-fog sprays to put on your glasses so that your glasses will not build fog. I am using this Optix 55 Anti-Fog Spray since last winter, and they work like a charm.
And if you want to know how the anti-fog spray works then you can read this article by McGill. And if you are facing fogging issues with your helmet visor as well, then you can use these cheap aftermarket solutions, to solve this problem.