No licence to drive without a proper eye test

Road safety champion GEM Motoring Assist, formerly the Guild of Experienced Motorists, says that many people are driving with impaired visions because their eyesight has degraded over years behind the wheel. It claims that even the crude test of reading a car’s number plate at 20.5 metres at the start of the driving exam is inadequate.

GEM says the driving test vision assessment only involves the very small part in the middle of the retina that is seeing the fine detail and is not concerned with peripheral vision that allows a driver to see a car overtaking or approaching from one side.

“Being able to read a number plate at about the length of a cricket wicket is just not an adequate assessment,” said David Williams, Chief Executive of GEM. “The test is not conducted with any degree of sophistication or the use of accurate measuring devices. Why should people not have to produce evidence that their sight has been properly tested by an optician before they are granted a licence to drive? In many cases the employer will meet the cost of such a test.”

Expert optometrist Peter Charlesworth agrees but he is also concerned about the significance of ageing or illness and their effect on eyesight. As an example he says if someone has a stroke that affects vision it causes everything on one side of the visual field to go out of sight.

“An individual may feel that they can see very well and that there is nothing wrong but there are areas that have gone black,” he said. “A simple test is to waggle your hands at your ears and if you see them with your peripheral vision then everything is fine. However, if you only see one hand it means you have a very large blind spot on one side.”

He says that apart from strokes, some diseases of the eye such as glaucoma that creeps up over months and years will eat away at peripheral vision if left untreated.

David Williams argues that mature and experienced motorists should have their eyes tested at least once every two years. “It may highlight a problem of health and reveal a cataract,” he said. “Mainly it will prevent us from being a hazard to other road users.”