NIGHT picture help

I'm a newbie here searching for some much needed answers. I have a Sony Cybershot DSC-P32 and have tried repeatidly to take pictures of objects at night that have lights on them but everytime a either get a tremendous amount of glare or red streaks in my photos. Examples of these are night pictures of my car with the lights on and houses decorated for christmas. Any help or suggestions is much appreciated. I just want it to look the way it does to the naked eye.

thanks in advance

[Bytephoto]

Hi,

Could you post an example so we can get a better idea of what the image looks like.

It sounds to me that the exposure is off, or your not using something stable like a tripod.

[chronic]

With nightshots the camera shutter is open for a long time, to capture the lower levels of light. if you have alot of manual settings and are able to set the shutter speed then, you can capture a good image in very low levels of light.
But if you move when it is still open u will blur the picturwe, abnd if the light is very strong it will over exposure the picture.

You need to practise the length of time the shutter is open and the EV level. Use a tripod or rest.