Can colour-blind people drive?

Soldato
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First off let me apologise for using the term colour bilnd, as i know its not PC, its just a general term that everyone accepts.

So can people with a colour defficiency drive, or had a problem getting a licence?

Read on the DVLA website that it does not affect the ability to view traffic signals for group 2 drivers. (what is group 2?)

Also i could not find any information of the minimun driving age on the dvla website, anyone got a link to the specific age restrictions?

Thanks :)
 
My dad has never had a problem driving while being colour blind.

OT - how come "colour blind" is non-PC??? In what possible way could it be non-PC?

***edit***

Interesting side-note - dad has a problem with certain colours, but is able to differentiate between many more tones of black and white than my mother, who has excellent colour vision. My sister and I got mum's colour vision and dad's black-and-white vision, but I've got a) a slight short-sightedness that b) gets much worse in anything brighter than a cloudy day in Coventry. Amy (sister) is the only person in the family with pretty much perfect vision. Apart from the cat. And since the cat doesn't drive it's pretty much a moot point :)
 
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Colour blind does not stop anyone from driving in the UK. It is similar to having long or short-sighted eyes. They do not need to be declared to DVLA either.
 
as road signs/signals can be indentified by shape aswell as position i doubt there would be any issues

OT/cos the term PC isnt PC anymore either, its weird and annoying and terms change all the time now cos theres always someone who is offended :p
 
Trifid said:
What?? Since when has it been more of a restriction in the air? There isn't really any need to be able to make out the different colours... (stupid laws.)

There's even more need to make out different colours in the air. The whole principle of navigation lights for example work on red and green lights. Light signals in the event of RT failure are used at aerodromes, again using red and green. Get one mixed with the other and you could have a potentially dangerous situation on your hands.
 
I'm colour blind and like most conditions there is a wide variation in the manifestation and severity of it. I can distinguish most colours but have problems if colours are of a similar hue or saturation. eg Red and Brown, Grey and Light Green etc. Imagine turning down the colour on a TV set and that is pretty much what it's like.
I don't have problems distinguishing traffic lights for example but at it's most extreme people cannot distinguish colour at all (monochromatic)
When I was growing up there were a number of jobs you couldn't do eg Policeman, Pilot, electrician etc
 
Just so you all know, I was actually joking, I'm colour blind but never had a problem with it, all I seem to have problems with is colours with similar hue and saturdation, like red and brown, light green and yellow. Although never noticed it in real world situations, it sucks though because it's really hampered progress in my career as I failed the colour blond test where they show you the dots.
 
I love how people get colour blindness so wrong, look at this article by a uni professor, he reckons a colour blind person would see the strawberries in the picture as green, like the picture next to it, I'm red/green colour blind and can clearly see the strawberries are red in the left picture :rolleyes:

strawberries.jpg
strawberries_deutan.jpg


http://www.vischeck.com/info/wade.php
 
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