Poor Driver Vision Responsible for Nearly 3,000 Road Casualties a Year
A recent report commissioned by a leading insurer RSA suggests that poor driver vision is responsible for around 2,900 road casualties and repair costs of £33 million every year, though I guess if we drill down a bit further, I suppose many drivers would say they only hit the other car “because they didn’t see it” although whether that’s due to poor eyesight or not, who knows?
Anyway, road charity Brake along with insurance company RSA are asking for the old fashioned test of reading a number plate when you take your driving test to be replaced with a pukka proper eye test which you need to pass and indeed, you have to say, that would make good sense, rather than the non-scientific tests we have today.
We all know that as we age, things start to deteriorate or drop off and one of the things that goes for most of us is our vision, so its also been suggested that the eye test should become mandatory every 10 years, so that failing eyesight can be picked up earlier and before it leads to an accident. The proposals believe the eye test should be linked to the renewal of the driving license photo card and maybe, that drivers should be encouraged to voluntarily have a test every couple of years, because that’s what’s recommended by the NHS in normal circumstances.
We’ve talked about this before, but when we drive, we do so in all kinds of conditions and I guess its mainly lousy rainy weather or foggy weather that makes driving the most difficult, even for those with 20-20 vision and of course, the lighting conditions play a big part as well, and then you’ve got that nasty little kind of ‘twilight’ time just before it gets dark, or gets light, where your vehicles lights don’t really do a job for you.
Of course, you shouldn’t drive if your vision is poor and I guess that most of us are aware when our eyes begin to fail a bit, as we maybe cant read as well, or the TV looks a bit blurry and its then when most of us take a visit to the opticians to enrol in the ‘speccy club’ and embark on a lifetime of mislaying our glasses. The other thing we have to get used to is remembering to ‘wear our glasses’ and that’s where many people go wrong, because in that kind of transitional time where we only wear your glasses sometimes, it’s often in the car that we don’t.
Despite knowing our vision is failing, many of us simply believe we can see enough to get behind the wheel safely after all other cars are big things aren’t they, and on that basis, legislation is the only way the changes that have been suggested will ever see the light of day. Oh, but it’s yet another rule!
