All drivers should have eye sight tests to retain their licence

[LoisPrice]

and they should be every 5 years reducing to yearly when over 70 years old https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-66053510

I get my eyes tested every two years, more if needed.

The last time (last year) I went early as I felt a change in vision and was concerned about driving. The optician said that while there was a change of prescription needed, I was miles off the threshold for safe driving and he showed me what the legal minimum was..., frightening!

Part of the issue is that there isn't an automatic requirement for medical professionals to notify the DVLA of someone's unsuitability to drive. They can do it voluntarily - but there's no process whereby they are required to.

It should be an automatic process that the DVLA are notified when someone is diagnosed with something notable. Relying on the person doing so when they have so much to lose and an inflated sense of them being a 'safe driver' is such a flawed system.

For example, there was absolutely nothing forthcoming from any of my father's 5 consultants to do with his MND care or his GP to the DVLA about the potential for his driving to need to be evaluated. This is a degenerative disease that massively affects strength, co-ordination and control. To my father's mind this meant no one was concerned about his ability to drive therefore he was allowed to (we didn't let him).

This shouldn't be an individual decision, it should be a mandated and assessed properly - if you diagnose someone with something concerning for the ability to drive you're legally required to report it to the DVLA for investigation.

That's just nuts! I was rear-ended at a red traffic light. 100% not my fault (stationary car, red light) but you'd see me banned from driving for 5 years.

And how precisely are millions of under 30 year olds expected to get to work etc without the ability to drive? Outside of London and possibly a handful of other English cities public transport is an expensive joke. Plus turning 30 won't magically make someone a more experienced driver - the 30 year old drivers around now have generally been driving for at least a decade....starting out as inexperienced youths. I think the insurance solution of black boxes is a far better idea than yours frankly.

Honestly, get a fucking grip!

Bus pass(free)?
Senior railcard?

I had a car drive into my car when it was parked in a parking space and I wasn't even in it.

Would I be banned from driving?

If you'd have tested my grandmas eyesight she would have turned up with her glasses and aced it. Then got in her car, taken the glasses off because she doesn't like them and it's 'just driving' then off she goes, hitting curbs and coming off roundabouts on the wrong side of the road and going through traffic lights she didn't see. There's little you can do about it, we took her keys but that was technically illegal.

If you have dash cam you can send the footage to the police and they can deal with her.

The death penalty was revoked in 1998 in the uk so unless they bring it back, its not going to happen

In how many cases would the accident still (most likely) have happened if the driver had the right glasses on?

as howcanihelp123 points out - you can't force drivers to wear the glasses to see with, this man killed twice without his glasses https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2182587/Short-sighted-lorry-driver-killed-pedestrian-93-ignoring-warnings-wear-glasses-causing-death-cyclist-years-ago.html

I really don’t see anyone have a reasonable argument against this. The only people I see actively against eye tests or renewing driving tests are older people who would probably fail them!

I wear glasses, get my eyes tested regularly and get new glasses if needed, and my license has it written on that I need glasses or lenses to drive. I wouldn’t dream of driving without them, I feel uncomfortable going for a walk without them and I have a relatively mild prescription (-3.0).

Would a quicker way of ensuring sight tests are done be to link it to car insurance. In the same way parking off-road is a lower risk for the car, you having sight checks is hopefully safer. Your insurer asks if you’ve had a sight test in the last 24 months and if you have you get a lower price on your insurance. If you haven’t you pay an extra £50 a year (or another sum. It would need to be more than the cost of the eye test I think).

Please don't generalise and sterotype older people.

I am 76, my husband is 80 and we DO NOT vote tory. We did not vote for Brexit.
We both drive and have our eyes tested regularly and glasses updated as necessary. And yes, regular eye tests should be compulsory for all drivers.

I'm aware of that. I meant I hope the poster is joking and no one is quite as ridiculous as that. Did you read the rest of it? 5 year ban from driving for a non fault accident🙄

But that’s exactly my point.

Making eye tests mandatory for licensing may not even solve the problem at all. In fact, the problem in that case and PP’s gran is that they aren’t wearing their glasses. Not that they haven’t had their eyes tested.

It would cost loads and require all sorts of changes to all sorts of things and still wouldn’t be addressing the actual issue.

I think that this will keep getting kicked into the long grass until driverless cars are the norm.

It's simply not worth it to set up infrastructure for this that will only have value for 15-20 years max.

Unfortunately my mum was also dumb enough to think that I could gain experience by... Not driving.

we took her keys but that was technically illegal.

So is driving with an uncorrected vision defect.

Yes, it is. But we had to do something illegal to stop her doing something illegal, but it was still technically theft. We legally didn't have the right to take her keys. If someone had asked her she would tell them yes of course she would wear them and how she always does. But she didn't! We took the risk of taking them to keep her and everyone else (on the road and off) safe.

Police don't have time to stop all drivers and check who is driving and if they're wearing the right glasses.

Christ on a bike - please give it rest with the "old people are all Tories" stuff.

I see this at work all the time. People so attached to the back of a fag packet ‘obvious’ solution they’ve come up with, and unwilling to actually think about what the problem really is and how it would be best to solve it.

SO true.

Unfortunately not, the only ID you can use for banks and a few other things are passport or driving licence, I had to use a solicitor to get probate recently and could only use passport or driving licence, the other types of ID can probably be used for age and some can be used for voting, until they get a proper form of ID that everyone can use for everything the driving licence is the cheapest to get.

I did say "usable for me".
I could buy "cheaper" glasses but they would very uncomfortable and so heavy that they would drop off my face if did anything other than look up.
Then there would be the second pair as I need glasses for short and long site.

This is not true. It's more difficult if you don't have photo ID but not impossible - sometimes you get an employee who doesn't know the full picture and just says no but you can live without photo ID - I know someone who does this, no driving licence or passport and no interest in getting either.

BTW I am currently using a solicitor for probate and they listed other forms of ID I could use if I didn't have a passport or Driving Licence.

People assume that everyone is the same as them.

There was me thinking that it was (beer) glasses that were the problem