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It has been shown in a field trial with 205 subjects who got an instruction, that active protective reactions could protect up to 80% of the exposed volunteers against laser radiation during a period of 1.4 seconds. This is a considerable improvement compared with the unreliable blink reflex, which works only in every 5th case. Therefore adequate instruction to perform active protective reactions, i. e. moving the head or closing the eyes, might be a valuable contribution to prevent any potentially hazardous laser radiation and increases the safety against laser radiation arising from wrong labeled class 2 laser products and true class 3R lasers emitting in the visible spectrum. Temporary blinding as the result of a dazzling light in the visual field arising from class-1 and class-2 lasers at wavelength of 632.8 nm and 532 nm has been investigated. It was found that already at output powers below 30 μW of a He-Ne-laser the subjects reported intense glare effects and felt uncomfortable due to the high brightness. The durations of afterimages took up to 300 s and have been measured as a function of the angle between the line of sight and the laser beam direction for exposure durations up to 10 s. A dose relationship has been found which determines the afterimage duration. The inability to read due to the disturbance produced by afterimages lasts for about 20 s even if the exposure is not more than 0.25 s from a laser with about 0.8 mW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]