Make the sun a tie-breaker

The sun rises roughly in the east and sets roughly in the west. If your home is east of your workplace, the morning drive is westward with the sun rising behind you, and the evening drive is eastward with the sun setting behind you — some discussions carry that, and it is the whole of the idea. It does not need to be across the city: one person says a mile east is enough, because the point is the direction you face at the two times of day the sun is low. Some people add that living north or south of work also keeps the sun out of your eyes for the main part of the drive; one person says a north-south commute puts the sun in the driver’s window both ways, and one person warns a side-window sun is its own strain, so one person suggests living north of work so that the sun comes in at the passenger window. People argue whether side-sun is better or simply different, and this page does not settle it. The sun’s rising and setting points move through the year — nearer north in summer, nearer south in winter at mid-latitudes — so the drive that is glare-free in October may not be in June; some people say the problem comes and goes with the seasons, and how to handle the weeks when the sun crosses from one side to the other is not covered here.

People are divided. Many people say the sun on the commute is a small thing next to price, safety, schools and the length of the drive, and should not drive the decision; many say a pair of sunglasses solves it cheaply and easily; and some say working from home, taking the bus or simply living with it beat moving house or turning down a job. Some people say the choice is a rare one — you live where the housing was — and some people say they live west of work through geography or plain bad luck; one person calls ruling out whole compass directions a sign of having money to spare. The side that says yes: some people say facing the sun on both drives is a daily, physical pain that hides traffic signals, one person describes headaches and eye strain, and one says that for a first-time buyer or a long commuter it is a real quality-of-life factor. The argument is rendered below. Where they land, in people’s own words, is a tie-breaker: when two homes are otherwise equal it is a good reason to prefer one, and when they are not, it is not.

In several places, people say, so check yours. Some people say it fails for anyone on a night or early shift, because the sun is somewhere else when they drive — or not up at all — and one person says a second- or third-shift worker would want the opposite side. Some people say living east moves the glare rather than removing it: with the sun behind you it bounces off the number plates and bumpers of the cars ahead, and one person adds rear windows and chrome, which the visor does nothing about; some people suggest polarised lenses for it. Some people say the geography may not allow it — on an east coast the east of work is the sea, and one person says lakes and refineries do the same job in other cities. Some people say that in some places the sun is rarely low enough at commuting hours to matter, and that in others snow on the ground reflects it and makes it worse than direct sun; some people say winter and snow are when it bites. Some people say it is seasonal anyway, with the sun up before or after the commute in summer and dark in winter. One person says living west of work means driving against the rush-hour flow both ways and saving time, and some people prefer that trade; some people warn moving east could lengthen the commute, depending on the region. And one person warns that an east-facing house can come with a west-facing garden too hot to sit in on summer evenings.

Some people, with more behind them, say that in the northern hemisphere the prevailing wind blows from the west, so a home east of a city centre or a factory sits downwind of its smoke. Some people narrow that: one person says the pattern holds only between thirty and sixty degrees north, not everywhere — one person extends the same band south of the equator — and others say it is reversed or irrelevant in particular cities because of a river, a coast or farmland. If your lungs react to bad air, do not move downwind of a major pollution source — and that is a question about a specific source and a specific wind, not about a compass point. How to check the wind and the pollution near a particular address before you buy or sign is not covered here. People also argue, city by city, about which side of a town is dearer or rougher, and contradict each other on the cities they name. This page does not rank any side of any town, and it would be wrong to: the reasons one side of a city costs more than another are history and policy, not the sun, and a compass direction says nothing about the people who live there.

Less than the reader with a free choice, and this is where people say little, so the gaps are named as gaps. Many people say sunglasses, and that they are cheap; some people say ordinary sunglasses stop working when the sun is on the horizon, one says a hat does what the lenses cannot, and some say they cannot afford good ones. One person names polarised lenses and a folding sun visor as the practical tools. One person says light-reactive lenses are useless in a car, and this page checked it: standard ones darken in response to ultraviolet light, and a laminated windscreen blocks nearly all of it, so they barely tint behind the glass; some newer kinds respond to visible light and are sold for driving — ask an optician which yours are before relying on them. One person warns the glare off the cars ahead is worse than direct sun because the visor cannot reach it. And the safety line at the top is the one that costs nothing: when you cannot see, slow down, and stop if you need to. What is not covered here is the rest — windscreen treatments and tints, changing the route or the time you leave, what a cyclist, walker or bus passenger facing the same sun should do, and anything at all for a north-south commute. Those are not covered here, not things this page can answer.

Two things, both light. One person ties a decade of driving with the sun on their left side to two skin cancers on the left shoulder, and one person warns long-term glare can harm eyesight. This page checked the shape of that claim. A 2016 study in JAMA Ophthalmology measured twenty-nine cars and found the windscreen blocked about 96 percent of UV-A on average while the side windows blocked about 71 percent, with only four of the twenty-nine above 90 percent — so the sun that reaches you through the driver’s window is less filtered than the sun through the windscreen. A 2010 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found that among patients in the United States, where the driver sits on the left, slightly more skin cancers were on the left side of the body than the right — about 53 to 47 — and proposed driving as a reason. Neither study tells you your risk, and this page does not either: it is one person and two studies, and a mark on your skin that changes is a doctor’s question whichever side of the car it is on. One person with astigmatism says low sun makes the commute unbearable regardless of sunglasses; specific advice for eye strain is not covered here, and a question for an optometrist.