Remember when everyone had bit of a laugh about government advisor Dominic Cummings and his absolute nonsense story about taking a 52-mile round trip in a car with his family to Barnard Castle during lockdown to assess the state of his vision? Well, not only did he make a mockery of the British public, but he made a mockery of anyone who has campaigned for reform around drivers’ vision requirements and more importantly, the families of people killed by drivers whose vision makes them unfit to drive.
Families like that of Hanno Garbe, a 57-year-old German national who was killed while riding his bicycle near Aviemore, Scotland in March 2018. His killer, an 84-year-old pensioner, was sentenced to 32 months in prison earlier this week. The individual had ignored warnings from optometrists on two separate occasions about his poor visual acuity. So poor in fact, that he could only read a number plate from just 4.8 metres – 15.2 metres shy of the legal limit. Little wonder that the cyclist couldn’t be seen in the seconds leading up to the accident.
The elderly driver was told by an optometrist at a multiple in Inverness, over 40 miles away from his Kingussie home, that there had been a severe drop off in his vision and diagnosed cataracts. A month later in October 2018, a hospital optometrist told the driver he should not drive until after a successful cataract operation. Both practitioners explained the law to the pensioner, and both were ignored.
Optometrists need to be able to make a difference in these situations but from reading forums and past experience, I sense that most simply don’t feel empowered to do so, from not having the full backing of legislation and guidance. Effective intervention must be made easier.