Better screening and greater public awareness of the importance of vision to driver performance are needed to improve road safety in the UK, a leading international authority on vision, ageing and driving has told Optician.
Speaking after her keynote lecture at the College of Optometrists’ Optometry Tomorrow conference earlier this month (News, 13.03.15), Professor Joanne Wood criticised the onus being on the patient to self-report changes to their vision.
She said: ‘Self-reporting of visual problems is wrong because it could potentially put people off going to the optometrist. If they don’t know whether they have a problem they have nothing to declare. It shouldn’t be up to patients – they should have appropriate vision testing.’
Under revised standards introduced in 2012, car and motorcycle drivers must be able to read a car number plate from 20m and have not been told by a doctor or optician that their eyesight is worse than 6/12 Snellen.
Commenting on the requirement for UK drivers to meet both standards, Professor Wood said: ‘I don’t understand that. It doesn’t make any sense to me. The more we can demonstrate that there isn’t any evidence to support that testing approach the better.’
Licensing standards were lagging ‘well behind’ research into vision and driving, she told delegates. But evidence was now starting to build and there were now much better tests than visual acuity for predicting driving performance and safety.
Asked what single change would make the most difference to road safety in the UK, Professor Wood cited raising awareness among drivers that changes to their vision could impact on their driving performance.
‘It doesn’t mean they’re going to lose their licence – the more educated they are, the better they’re able to deal with it.
‘If we could get better screening tools that recognise that the capacity to drive involves visual, sensory motor and cognitive elements that would be very useful but that’s a longer term aim,’ she added.