If you are a serious motorcycle rider you already know why you should wear goggles or eye protection while riding. If you are a newbie than I will tell you what; if you do not wear some type of eye protection while riding, you are in for a world of hurt and tears.

Eye protection is MANDATORY unless you are superman. Not only does eye protection protect you from the constant wind hitting your eyes, but it protects you from debris and bugs that will hit your eyes while on the road riding your motorcycle.

If you wear a full face helmet you should already have a face shield that will give you great eye protection, but what about those times that you need to flip the visor open while riding?

I always recommend that you wear Goggles if you are riding with an open face helmet or no helmet at all, because they provide the best protection for your eyes period. When I used to ride with no helmet, and/or the novelty helmet, I had two sets of goggles, one for day, and a clear set for night. They may not look as cool as sunglasses, but they work much better, and provide better protection against the wind, road dirt, and bugs. I know this from first hand experience.

With sunglasses or clear lens night glasses, the wind will still bother your eyes at high speed, or if you turn your head to the left or to the right to look at the view. If you are going real fast, a loose fitting pair of glasses will actually start riding up on your face. Furthermore road debris will still get into your eye. They do not provide full eye protection. You may look cool, but your eyes will take a beating, especially on long runs.

If you do wear a full face helmet, I recommend that you wear sunglasses underneath your helmet for day time riding, and clear lens glasses for night time riding. As you know on cold days or nights, your visor will fog up when you are at a stop, and you will need to flip your visor up and ride a bit to clear the fog from your visor. If you are not wearing glasses, your eyes will be unprotected during this time. Furthermore if you have to flip up your visor for any reason while riding, you will want to make sure that your eyes are protected while riding.

I have personally experienced very cold weather while riding with a full face helmet and had the bad experience of having to flip my visor open to get the fog out of the visor, while not having a pair of glasses on for secondary protection. It was not fun!

I recommend UV and Glare resistant lenses for whatever type of eye protection you use. Sun glare can temporarily blind a motorcycle rider, and could lead to a devastating crash. Night glare from oncoming headlights can have the same effect. I once almost drove my motorcycle straight into a curve because sun glare prevented me from seeing it. They do make special lenses with Sun Glare protection.

By Norman Gregory Fernandez, Esq. , Copyright 2006