Polarize the lens of automobile headlights in the vertical plane. Polarize automobile windshields in the horizontal plane. The light from the headlights will tend to lose polarization as rays hit objects like the roadways. The light directly from the headlights will mostly be reduced and the running lights will be the major source of lighted markers. So the headlights can have much higher outputs without hurting the eyes of drivers and passengers of on-coming traffic.
More of the area is illuminated which gives the drivers more time to react and clear objects potentially unseen because of headlight glare. Motorcycle face shields would have similar polarization as windshields; promoting the wearing of safety helmets.
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Polarization ideas have been around since the material was invented in the late 1930's. The ideal orientation is to have the angle at 45 degrees so that oncoming traffic has 180 degree shift in orientation which gives maximum blockage of glare.
People wearing polarized sunglasses in their car would not be able to see through the windshield if their glasses were not the same polarization as the windshield. They will also be blinded if they tilt their head.
The big problem with this is that polarized filters [i]cut out half of the light coming through[/i]. This would be similar to throwing a 50% window tint on the windshield, which happens to be illegal almost everywhere. Not only that, the headlights would also have their output reduced by 50%. You'd have to run headlights at 4 times higher power, and street lights at double the power, just to see things as well as with no filters.
Just what we need to make the cost of cars/trucks go up even more and reduce the distance we can see at night while driving--if you look directely at the headlights it will blind you--I see you have never taken a driving class or forgot where they told you to look!! If Ford came out with this idea it would be a repeat of the Edsel!!!
This idea of polarization has already been tested. The major issue was that at night people couldn't see the headlights very well anymore causing traffic accidents.