Imagine driving late at night and boom you just get hit with multiple different colored lasers… Well yeah, China is doing this to help driver fatigue at night. The lasers are mounted on freeway signs and change between red, purple, blue, and green lights. These beams project across the sky and are mainly being tested on an expressway used by truck drivers. Although this might benefit some people, there is a lot of controversy behind it.

This video went viral on multiple social media platforms and the feedback is quite overwhelming:  

“These laser lights designed to combat fatigue quickly revitalized him and reduced his exhaustion during a prolonged nighttime,” said the man who recorded the footage, Mr. Li.

“More of a reason to never drive at night with my astigmatism,” said a TikTok user.

“Nice laser show. Night highway entertainment,” said an X (former Twitter) user.

“Whose genius idea is it to blind the drivers? Congrats, those who aren’t sleepy are now disoriented,” said a TikTok user.

Those who have been driving for hours or have late night shifts and come across these beams might agree that they can help but what about those with medical issues such as epilepsy or astigmatism?

Epilepsy is a disorder of the brain characterized by repeated seizures; there are multiple triggers but one main trigger is flashing lights or contrasting light and dark patterns. So in this case, if one is epileptic and is not aware of these lights, things could go south very fast.

Astigmatism is a common eye problem that can make one’s vision blurry or distorted; lights at night tend to trigger it more so imagine the simple street lights at night already being quite bothersome and then having to pass these beams. It could become chaotic.

Since being posted, the video has had over 63 million views and 23,00 reposts. With this being said, there has not been more proof of China continuing to test these lasers but the feedback from those who don’t even live there might leave China thinking otherwise.