A recent news headline highlighted the importance of quality eyewear being your only eyewear. In the story, a woman was involved in a car accident while wearing fashion sunglasses. The airbag deployed, shattering the lenses of her sunglasses, which then became lodged in her face, ultimately costing her an eye.
This unfortunate story reminds us that not all eyewear is safe, and even the most common daily activities pose a risk. It also gives us a reason to rethink what makes eyewear safe. Common practice has been to own multiple pairs of eyewear to serve multiple purposes. In this post, we’ll take a look at each need and how to fulfill it.
Protection against light: Perhaps the most common reason why people reach for a pair of “shades” is to reduce the intensity of light and make viewing more pleasant on bright days. This is accomplished through various tints to block or reduce selected bands of the color spectrum. What’s unseen is damaging UVA and UVB light, which adds to eye fatigue and, over time, eye damage. This is why WarBird eyewear is UV400-rated to block harmful UVA and UVB ray wavelengths up to 400 nanometers.
Protection against foreign objects: From a lemon spritz gone awry to a kamikaze gnat, the world is full of hazards to our invaluable eyes. While cheap convenience store eyewear might protect you against the simplest of hazards, only properly tested and rated eyewear can handle the real threats of foreign objects projected with force. We can’t predict the future, and so selecting eyewear based on the safety concerns of the moment is irrational. For this reason, we recommend and produce ANSI Z87.1+ eyewear to handle threats both predicted and unforeseen. Learn more about our safety rating.
Protection against the worst case: The unfortunate tale of the woman losing an eye when her sunglasses shattered under the force of her airbag deploying causes serious thought. We don’t know all the details of her incident, but chances are the lenses were made of brittle plastic or glass and not polycarbonate as are all WarBird’s 4SHADOW lenses.
Polycarbonate lenses cost more, but are considered shatterproof, and are highly resistant to impact. Additionally, the strength of polycarbonate (considered to be up to 10X stronger than glass) means that the lenses are thinner, which helps reduce weight and make for a more comfortable all-day wear. While there is no standard for testing safety against airbags, what we can do is strive to make the safest, most reasonable eyewear on the market. We’re real people too and understand that wearing a riot face shield is impractical, so we’ve produced eyewear that you can use every day knowing you’re better protected.
See WarBird’s extensive eye protection line here.
