An elderly man turned to me this morning blinking as if struggling to focus. He had just looked up from his smartphone and realising he couldn’t see me he slipped a pair of ready readers off his nose.
Although the man in question continued to squint in my direction I couldn’t catch his eye and he clearly wasn’t able to focus on me.
Not an unusual situation you might think? Not so. It was rush hour, I was on a bike riding at 20mph towards him and he was in a car pulling out from a sloping side road.
I would guess he was a school run cabbie as the car had half a dozen kids of a similar age, he was a frail looking man well past retirement age. The only thing worse than his eyesight was his clutch control.
Calls for action to rid the road of drivers with defective vision have come from all quarters. While the associations leading optometry have sat on their hands others have taken action.
During September three police forces – Thames Valley, Hampshire and the West Midlands will trial a zero tolerance approach to drivers’ vision. Everyone pulled over will be required to pass a roadside number plate test, if they fail their licence will be revoked on the spot. The initiative, supported by the road safety group Brake and Vision Express, will be used as a test bed for a wider scheme.
Persuading the public to change behaviour is always about a carrot and stick approach. While it’s not ideal that drivers will be driven into practice for fear of losing their licence the forthcoming National Eye Health Week offers a chance for more positive reasons to attend.
Optician will watch with great interest for the results of the trial and the effect on optical practices in those areas.