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About Southern Seas

Southern Seas Glasses is a UK company, which was founded by Dr Tony Brooks in Cambridge in 2013. The company is small, but growing fast, and already send thousands of pairs of glasses a month to customers in the UK, the US and Europe. We are an online company, and as such, are not constrained by the high overheads incurred by bricks-and-mortar opticians. This allows us to pass the savings on to our customers.

Most of our operations are based in Hong Kong. This allows us to work closely with leading Chinese mainland manufacturers, in order to bring you quality spectacles at a fraction of the price on your local high street.

Here at Southern Seas we are passionate about glasses. This passion informs our mission statement, and our long-term aims.

Southern Seas Mission Statement:

To provide affordable quality glasses for all
To use our long experience of sourcing products in East Asia to bring you great glasses at very reasonable prices
To give massively increased choice to all wearers of spectacles

If you have any questions, or would like to know more, please feel free to contact us at info@southernseasglasses.co.uk

Tony Brooks Founder of Southern Seas

FREE Shipping

Our shipping policy is simple. All orders are FREE shipping.

We normally process and ship orders Monday through Friday and before 11am Saturday, public holidays excepted. Custom fitted glasses require 1-2 days for fitting. In the unlikely event that lenses are not in stock and have to be ordered specially, fitting takes longer, typically up to 5 days.

All our parcels are sent with a tracking number. To find out where your order is at any time, we recommend using www.17track.net which is very easy to use, just type in the tracking number and hit "enter".

Currently all our glasses are shipped from Hong Kong to UK addresses by Hong Kong express post, which normally takes 5-10 business days from date of dispatch.

Post to the United States is sent via USPS international signed for (which normally takes 7-15 business days). All other mail is sent via international signed for airmail, delivery time varies by country. If you need expedited shipping, please contact us at the time of ordering.

Please kindly allow extra time for shipping at busy times of year such as Christmas, when the post is generally slower.

We are very happy to ship to military addresses, however we cannot guarantee shipping times.

Blog

Can you drive wearing reading glasses?

Tony Brooks

Can you drive wearing reading glasses? The short answer is no.

Reading glasses are designed to correct for presbyopia, which is a big word for when the eye cannot focus properly on near objects.

Reading glasses (readers) are designed to give clarity to objects at a maximum distance of around one metre, or 3 feet. This corresponds to roughly an arm’s length, or the (greatest) distance at which you would hold a book, a phone or a menu away from your face.

Driving involves focusing on objects at a distance greater than one metre, e.g road signs, other cars, etc, therefore reading glasses are not recommended for use when driving.

The UK Driver and Vehicle Licence Agency (DVLA), sets out its driving eyesight rules here: https://www.gov.uk/driving-eyesight-rules

Essentially, they say that you need to be able to read a number plate at 20m in order to pass the eyesight part of the test. Note though, that different (higher) standards of vision are required for UK lorry and bus drivers, in order to pass the driving eyesight test.

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If you want to know more, here’s is a summary of what the DVLA say about eyesight rules on their website:

“You must wear glasses or contact lenses every time you drive if you need them to meet the standards of vision for driving. You must tell DVLA if you’ve got any problem with your eyesight that affects both of your eyes, or the remaining eye if you only have one eye. This doesn’t include being short or long sighted or colour blind. You also don’t need to say if you’ve had surgery to correct short sightedness and can meet the eyesight standards.

At the start of your practical driving test you have to correctly read a number plate on a parked vehicle. If you can’t, you’ll fail your driving test and the test won’t continue. DVLA will be told and your licence will be revoked. When you reapply for your driving licence, DVLA will ask you to have an eyesight test with DVSA. This will be at a driving test centre. If you’re successful, you’ll still have to pass the DVSA standard eyesight test at your next practical driving test.”