I certainly agree with Nick Rumney (In Focus) that registered optometrists and opticians should not feel limited by GOC regulations if they wish to report a driver to the DVLA as being unfit to drive.
I would certainly have no hesitation to do so if I felt the driver was a danger to the public and was not going to take advice to stop driving. For anyone who is unsure of the procedure for this process, they should consult the invaluable document Assessing fitness to drive – a guide for medical professionals (www.gov.uk).
But concerning the issue of regular sight tests for drivers, I think a lot more work has to be done before this is ever going to happen. For those keen on introducing this measure I would suggest there are two major factors to consider: the official statistics on road accidents; and the issue of who pays for the sight test.
If we look at the Department for Transport official statistics for 2015, there were 108,211 reported road accidents. Of these 1,469 involved a fatality. When looking at the contributing factors reported, the most common one was ‘failed to look properly’, which was indicated in 47,243 accidents. As for ‘uncorrected or defective eyesight’, this was a factor in only 232 accidents.
So unless better independent statistics can be produced to show that poor vision is really a major problem, I cannot see any government wanting to introduce any more driving regulations.
But if such a regulation was introduced, who would pay for the sight test? Governments would need a lot of convincing that it was going to save a lot of lives and serious injury on the roads. Would it be a vote winner if a government insisted that drivers should pay for regular sight tests?
