Myopia - Short sightedness and Driving.

Riiya

Riiya

Riiya

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So I had an eye test and the optician gave me a prescription for glasses because I'm slightly short sighted. He was asking if I drive etc, and said I would have to wear them for occasions such as that. My prescription is only -0.75 SPH in each eye. Surely I don't need to wear these glasses for driving as a legal requirement?

I thought all you had to do was be able to read a License Plate from 20.5m away?

I can't even tell my eyes are bad unless I try to read some VERY small writing from far a way and it's slightly blurry.

What you think?
 
Yeah, screw the trained medical practitioner, I'll ask some berks on an internet forum, they'll know better.
 
if he has said to wear them whilst driving then i would.
I am short sighted and was initially told to only wear them for tv and driving but when i was generally walking around i was straining my eyes to see so not wearing them made my eye sight worse. (According to the second optician i saw)

Though mine were -1.50 at the time. so a tad different to yours. (they are now -2.75) :(
 
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If your optician suggests you should wear glasses for driving then I think you should wear glasses for driving.

Yes, reading a numberplate from 20.5m away might be a minimum but do you want to just aim for the minimum?
 
I'm short sighted and need contacts or glasses.

Why not test out the glasses and see how much difference they make.

Don't miss out on life.
 
mines something like -0.5 and -0.25 but i thanks to astigmatism im pretty blind without the glasses lol. so yeah, i have to wear them all the time. It's cool looking at up at the moon and seeing two of them though :p
 
Fenris said:
Yeah, screw the trained medical practitioner, I'll ask some berks on an internet forum, they'll know better.
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I'm asking what the legal requirements are and whether or not I may have misinterpreted the 'need' to wear glasses when driving.

Also, my short sightedness is such that I can see perfectly fine. I wouldn't have even considered the need for glasses.

I may go get a second opinion as I think I may have over exaggerated the loss in 'clarity' of small text at distances (I can read all the silly eye test plates perfectly (he says) but they are a bit fuzzy on the edges for the small ones).
 
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No, you don't HAVE to wear them. I can BARELY read a plate from 20m, and I took my lessons and test without my glasses.

But don't worry, I'll start wearing glasses when I get my own car.
 
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If you have an accident and they find out you're eyesight is poor you can expect to be in a lot of bother whether you knew about it or not.
 
If you are a -0.75 then I would strongly recommend you do wear glasses when driving. I am a -1.00 and without glasses there's an obvious diminishment in my ability to read road signs and see feet underneath a car etc. At night this lack of visual acuity is amplified to the point that I would feel very unnerved driving without correction. I have driven once, during the day, without my glasses or contacts and it was quite a harrowing experience.
 
I'll say this: I'm quite happy to wear glasses it's not that I hate them. They don't make me look silly (from the ones I tried on today), which is a blessing. However, I think I will get a second opinion just to make sure I do actually NEED them. There is no point in wearing them and learning to drive with 'restrictive windows' on my eyes if I don't necessarily HAVE to.

You never know with opticians, they do make most of their money selling the glasses :/
 
you should have choosen better glasses then if they are too restrictive.


It's hard not to sound condesending but here it is: its pretty simply mate. if you see better with glasses, wear them. I wouldnt dream of not doing so when im in control of a ton and a half of metal. To be brutally honesty, you shouldn't need a second opinion. Not from us, or from another optician.
 
You might be able to work out the small text when your sat in the comfy opticians chair looking at it for a minute or so, but when your travelling quickly in a car and have to glance read signs.... I don't think so.

Do what your optician says as its good advice. What is it with the current generation of "well a medical practitioner said that I need something but I know best" bull?
 
Are your eyes legally good enough to drive without glasses? Yes, by the sound of it.

Should you consider driving with an easily correctable issue that could impact your driving? No.
 
James J said:
well a medical practitioner said that I need something but I know best" bull?
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Maybe it stems from the fact that it's SLIGHTLY difficult to trust the judgement of a company that bases its profit margins on prescriptions; especially when you can discern no real problem in your own eyes yourself. Sure my glasses may enhance my vision, but so did HDTV enhance SDTV. It doesn't mean it was necessary.

I'll get a second opinion anyway, because I can afford to. In fact I think I will get a third opinion too, at separate opticians, just to compare the three. No doubt the prescriptions will be widely different in SPH/AXIS/CYL.

It's my health, and in my opinion I think the results could be inaccurate.
Then again, I could be wrong. Then again, they are my eyes.

Sorry if I sound presumptuous, but if I'm borderline, I would rather be on the no-glasses side of the pitch. If I do need them, fair enough. :P
 
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Riiya said:
Maybe it stems from the fact that it's SLIGHTLY difficult to trust the judgement of a company that bases its profit margins on prescriptions; especially when you can discern no real problem in your own eyes yourself. Sure my glasses may enhance my vision, but so did HDTV enhance SDTV. It doesn't mean it was necessary.

I'll get a second opinion anyway, because I can afford to. In fact I think I will get a third opinion too, at separate opticians, just to compare the three. No doubt the prescriptions will be widely different in SPH/AXIS/CYL.

It's my health, and in my opinion I think the results could be inaccurate.
Then again, I could be wrong. Then again, they are my eyes.

Sorry if I sound presumptuous, but if I'm borderline, I would rather be on the no-glasses side of the pitch. If I do need them, fair enough. :P
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Its just not your eyes though, you potentially take other peoples lives into your own hands if you drive a vehicle with impared eyesight. Sorry but you just sound amazingly inconsiderate of other road users safety just to try and prove a point.
 
PMKeates said:
If you are a -0.75 then I would strongly recommend you do wear glasses when driving. I am a -1.00 and without glasses there's an obvious diminishment in my ability to read road signs and see feet underneath a car etc. At night this lack of visual acuity is amplified to the point that I would feel very unnerved driving without correction. I have driven once, during the day, without my glasses or contacts and it was quite a harrowing experience.
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I was going to write an identical post to this...
 
James J said:
Sorry but you just sound amazingly inconsiderate of other road users safety just to try and prove a point.
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Sorry, but I don't. I have already outlined numerous times I would wear them if it is legally required. I should expect the legal requirements concerning the standard of ones eyesight is set such that there is a level of acceptable clarity in vision. Like I said, I doubt you need 20/20 eye sight to drive - it makes no sense. Surely loss of clarity at great distances in very small objects/text aren't a problem? I'm more than capable of reading a number plate from 20 meters away without loss of focus!
 
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