Over-70s face driving ban for failing eye tests

Is this even a new thing, my next door neighbor had his licence taken away last year for failing eyesight. Just side vision though. Front vision is fine.

Yet the chap down the street who only has one eye is fine to still drive. Does one eye really cover both eye's side vision?
 
scarps said:
Is this even a new thing, my next door neighbor had his licence taken away last year for failing eyesight. Just side vision though. Front vision is fine.

Yet the chap down the street who only has one eye is fine to still drive. Does one eye really cover both eye's side vision?
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It's something that currently only tends to happen when eyesight is really, really poor - to give an idea the specialist at the hospital was gingerly brining up that my dad might need to give up his licence, when the sight in his remaining eye hit about 60%.
My dad had given up driving voluntarily about 5-10 years earlier, as he put it "I didn't want to become like [neighbour who was an utter danger] and keep hitting our own fences".

And yes, one eye, if in reasonable condition is enough to cover you for driving, it's one of the reason they do the fields tests as that checks for how good your eyesight is at the edges in each eye.
My father drove for about 10-15 years with one eye effectively out, and for most of his adult life with little vision in his "bad" eye, he was on 3 yearly licences with sight tests done at a DVLA approved optician as the condition for retaining it, a lot of people don't inform DVLA of sight (or other) problems that they should.

IIRC there was rumblings years ago that medical professionals should report conditions that can/will affect driving, and eyesight was one specifically mentioned, but i'm not sure that ever happened.



Personally I think the eye test should be every 5 years, and compulsory if you wish to drive anything.
If nothing else it'll mean a lot of drivers end up finding they've got eye problems when it's still early enough to treat them easily (by the time a lot of people realise and admit they've got a problem, some conditions are no longer reversable and a lot of damage is done), as well as significantly reducing the accidents.
 
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Should be stricter than just eye sight. Reaction times, any serious heart conditions (risk of dying at the wheel) should be considered too.

Cromulent said:
They should make it illegal to drink ANY alcohol when driving. Drink drivers are the scum of the earth.
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Problem with making it zero is there will be "false positives". People who ate something which might contain a bit of alcohol and then get done when they aren't really drunk at all.
 
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jpaul said:
The reducing alcohol level, across the board - great
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Cromulent said:
They should make it illegal to drink ANY alcohol when driving. Drink drivers are the scum of the earth.
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[flame proof pants on]

I'm not so sure about this. Unless of course there is more recent and contradictory evidence, I seem to recall a study concluding that there was no increase in accidents for people with blood alcohol levels between the (let's call them) English and Scottish limits. The issue has always been irresponsible people who go over (often way over) the current limit, not those who stay below it.

To give some context I'm not suggesting that people should try to drink up to the current limit and drive. Obviously it's better not to drink alcohol and drive and it's not something I would normally do. However, I am of the view that an adult should be able to have (say) a single glass of wine or pint of beer without fear of being made a criminal. Also, when people talk about zero tolerance does that mean if you have a drink on a week night, you can't risk driving to work the next morning in case there is still enough residual alcohol in your system to register above zero? Or if you've had a glass of wine with lunch you can't chance driving that evening, even though to all intents and purposes you are completely sober, but just might register above zero if tested. Or if you have the car you can't risk a sherry trifle, using alcoholic mouthwash etc?

As far as I'm aware drink driving has long been considered socially unacceptable and it seems unlikely that anyone doing it now at above the current limit, is going to stop because that limit is reduced. But bringing in an actual zero tolerance limit would seem to be an imposition on a lot of currently law abiding people.
 
Mr Badger said:
[flame proof pants on]

snip
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If you have a blood alcohol level high enough to be questionable you need to not drive. Waking up the next day and feeling grand is fine, but feeling good doesn't mean that you're competent.

A glass of wine or pint will not register the next day, you'd literally need to have a few more or at the least have an alcohol problem where you're doing it daily.

alcosense.co.uk

How long does alcohol stay in your system?

How long does alcohol stay in your system breathalyzer. Alcohol blood test how long does alcohol stay if I drank the night before a breathalyzer
alcosense.co.uk alcosense.co.uk
 
Self reporting is complete garbage. A grandparent had to be strongly discouraged by family before they let go of their licence and that only came to a head after personally seeing their driving as a passenger.

For some time I've been amazed at an older guy who toddles around, using a wheeled frame, who had a stroke and it's super obvious, unable to talk properly and has terrible coordination of hands etc. Can barely hold an object with both hands. I've seen him collapse more than once and each time refuses to wait for an ambulance. Just staggers away.

Because I found out he's still driving. I'll bet the DVLA didn't hear a single thing about reduced competence.
 
As much as I think drink drivers are the scum of the earth and personally won't drive if I touch alcohol at all I don't see the decrease in tolerance achieving much other than a possible increase in false positives and/or people who've maybe not quite got the timing right and aren't really a problem and those that are a problem are usually well over the current threshold which IMO is a fairly reasonable one.

Hotwired said:
Self reporting is complete garbage. A grandparent had to be strongly discouraged by family before they let go of their licence and that only came to a head after personally seeing their driving as a passenger.
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Yeah - we had several older relatives who we either had to have their license taken away or had to have strong discussions with and if we hadn't it would have only been a matter of time until something serious happened. Several of them have themselves been strongly critical of other and/or older than them relatives over not giving up when it was time as well.

Just hope I don't go that way - I've already told my family if I ever start talking fondly about Honda Jazzes and similar cars to shred my license.
 
Gray2233 said:
If you have a blood alcohol level high enough to be questionable you need to not drive. Waking up the next day and feeling grand is fine, but feeling good doesn't mean that you're competent.

A glass of wine or pint will not register the next day, you'd literally need to have a few more or at the least have an alcohol problem where you're doing it daily.

alcosense.co.uk

How long does alcohol stay in your system?

How long does alcohol stay in your system breathalyzer. Alcohol blood test how long does alcohol stay if I drank the night before a breathalyzer
alcosense.co.uk alcosense.co.uk
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You may be conflating separate points from my post as I didn't claim that a single drink would register the following day (although that rather depends on the exact type of test used). However, if a zero tolerance approached was adopted a single drink could register quite a few hours later.

The next day point was more about if (say) you went out for a few beers mid week (not a 3am coke fuelled orgy slamming down endless shots). Despite getting home at a sensible time and having 8 hours sleep, a zero tolerance policy could still find traces of alcohol in your system. According to your link it takes about 10 hours for the alcohol in 4 pints of average beer to clear your system. However, it also says "If, for example, you were to consume four pints of medium-strong beer or four large glasses of wine, a breathalyser would detect alcohol in your system for up to 14 hours."

To reiterate I'm not talking about whether someone is borderline safe to drive, but where someone is to all intents and purposes sober and might get caught out under a zero tolerance approach because there are trace amounts of alcohol in their system.
 
gary996 said:
Surely if your eyes are bad, just wear glasses
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Glasses only correct for some things, and you need to admit you need them, and to actually wear them. That seems a very high hurdle for some people.

It seems that a lot of people refuse to go to the opticians until either they have no choice, or something happens which is nuts.
For example the case that seems to be getting a lot of press at the moment was a guy who apparently had trouble seeing his steering wheel...

We had to ban my mother from using her mobility scooter at one point because when my dad went out with her on the other scooter* he realised she couldn't see the traffic, we took her to the opticians who diagnosed bad cataracts and she had an op to remove a few months later.
My sister has glasses, but she doesn't like to admit she needs them, so she didn't wear them when she really should have (she was more or less "ok" without them, but IMO it's stupid to be "ok" when your sight can be "good" whilst driving), she changed a bit when she had her daughter and was a bit more willing to wear them.

I know a few others who admit their eyes aren't as good as they used to be, but "these cheap off the shelf glasses do the job" and won't go to the opticians.

I have a very low opinion of people's common sense when it comes to their eyesight, as so many don't seem to realise or care about it.
Meanwhile I'm mildly paranoid, partly because I've seen how an eye injury (from 70 years ago), cataracts and glaucoma have screwed my fathers' eyes up.


And this reminds me, I need to swap out the spare glasses in the car, they're two prescriptions out ;) (I always have a spare pair in the car that are good enough to drive in case the ones I'm wearing get broken).


*He's not taken one of the mobility scooters out for about 10 years now, as he decided he wasn't safe on it as his eyes got worse.
 
Absolutely agree, there's far too many old people on the road that have sub-par vision and situational awareness.
Of course it's not nice them having their freedom taken away but public safety trump's it really.
Christ, some of them are menace's on mobility scooters.
 
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While I'm 39 and my eyesight has not changed for ~15 years (although I've been wearing glasses/contacts for that time) driving is fine. My wife has a slight astigmatism and I don't think that can be fully 'fixed', I believe lights at night look a bit 'starry' so not everything can be sorted. I do remember many years ago being in the back of my granddad's car and him pulling on to a dual carriageway (at 70) without even checking his blind spot :eek: . I'm sure there's plenty of people that know their eyesight has deteriorated but just don't care or deluded themselves into thinking it's fine (worryingly), it would explain the poor driving I see on a daily basis.
 
Hagar said:
I have an eye test every two years, I am 72 years old. Earlier this year I had an eyesight problem and voluntarily gave up driving until after an eye test in july which allowed me to get back on the road safely.
Not surprisingly it is the younger cohort who kill themselves and others with more regularity than us older folk.
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Yeah friday saturday night its the boy racers who are tearing up the tarmac they're statistically the highest rate of accidents followed by the 85's and over. Targeting the over 70's is just discrimination.
 
yes agress with the eye tests, but we all should be having eyes checked every few years, i know someone in their 40s whos needs glasses but refuses to wear them so will be illegal to drive without them
its not just 70+ that needs testing but admittidly they do need more testing as there are many more issues at older ages

as for the drinking, NO drinking full stop

and ive noticed theres another issue with medical cannabis use, apparently its legal to drive whist using a vape WTF is that about?
 
Blackjack Davy said:
Yeah friday saturday night its the boy racers who are tearing up the tarmac they're statistically the highest rate of accidents followed by the 85's and over. Targeting the over 70's is just discrimination.
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The boy racers have potential, if they don't kill themselves, to learn, get loaded down with responsibilities like debt, jobs and family and thus become a safer driver.

That isn't true of having accidents (or being a low speed/reaction/awareness hazard) due to having too many years of wear and tear on the body and mind. It won't get better.

Managing boy racers has to be different to deciding when someone has lost the ability to be a safe driver forever.
 
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