Road safety campaign encourages drivers to get eyes tested

A campaign has kicked off in the United Kingdom to encourage drivers to get their eyes checked every two years as one way to help avoid road accidents.

Research shows that many drivers are failing to ensure they can see property on every journey, notes a statement posted Tuesday on the website for road safety charity Brake, which has teamed up with the U.K. government’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), insurer RSA and Specsavers on its Sharpen Up campaign.

The initiative is meant to encourage drivers to get their eyes tested to ensure their vision meets legal standards, notes the statement.

RSA research from 2012, Fit to Drive: a cost benefit analysis of more frequent eyesight testing for U.K. drivers, estimates that failing to ensure vision is good enough to drive results in 2,900 road casualties annually. The collisions carry a cost of £33 million a year.

Still, a survey of 1,000 drivers conducted by Redshift Research on behalf of Brake, RSA and Specsavers found that 26% of drivers polled have not had a vision test in the last two years, 9% say they have not visited the optician for five years or more, 3% report it has been a more than a decade and 3% have never had their eyes checked. Even drivers who know they need glasses or corrective lenses fail to wear them on every journey, with 9% reporting they do not always wear such aids when driving.

“If your vision isn’t up to scratch, you are posing an enormous risk on roads, as being able to see properly is fundamental to being a good driver. Your eyesight can deteriorate rapidly without you noticing, and at the wheel, that can be lethal,” Julie Townsend, deputy chief executive of Brake, says in the statement.

“It’s no wonder so many people aren’t fit to drive when eye tests aren’t required by law at any point once you’ve passed your driving test,” comments Adrian Brown, CEO of RSA U.K. & Western Europe.

Legal requirements state that if a driver’s vision is below 6/12 (0.5) or the person’s visual field is less than 120 degrees, the DVLA must be informed. To raise awareness among drivers about their responsibilities, Brake reports that the DVLA has launched an online education campaign.

DVLA reports that at the start of a practical driving test, a person’s eyesight is tested. The applicant will need to correctly read a number plate on a parked vehicle at 20 metres.

“The number plate test is a simple assessment of vision and can be reproduced regularly by motorists to check whether they meet the standards themselves and by the police at the roadside,” Jan Chandaman, head of medical licensing policy at DVLA, says in the statement.

Brake calls on government to introduce a requirement for drivers to provide proof of a recent optician’s visit when applying for their provisional licence and every renewal thereafter. Citing a 2011 media report, it was estimated as many as 5 million U.K. drivers would fail a number-plate test if they had to take it again.

That said, MP Meg Munn noted in parliament in December 2012 that only 5,916 drivers had their licence revoked by the DVLA for failing to meet minimum eyesight standards in 2011.