Seeing the Risk: Why Eyesight Matters for Driver Safety

This is actually a really important session for anyone who manages drivers because recent research has shown that over 720,000 drivers would probably fail a roadside eyesight test. So we have got some great experts on the panel for this session, and I am going to leave you in the capable hands of my colleague Anne-Marie Penny from National Highways.

Good morning everyone. It is really good to see you all here today. As Simon said, I am Anne-Marie Penny, Senior Road Safety Policy Adviser at National Highways. I would like to introduce my distinguished guests here: Dr Pam Bilku from the College of Optometrists, Dr Carol Hawley from Warwick University, Rob Heard MBE from Older Drivers Forum, and Dr James Adeley, who is a former coroner.

So, eyesight. I am going to ask you a very quick question first of all. Can you put your hands up if you have had an eyesight test in the last two years?

Wow, I am very impressed with that. Let us give them a round of applause. Excellent. You are probably very engaged with this topic.

So 90 percent of information that a driver uses is visual, and good eyesight is really important for things like hazard perception and reaction times. If you cannot perceive a hazard, you are not going to be able to react in time. Sign recognition is also important. If you are anything like me, you need to know where you are not supposed to be going rather than where you are supposed to be going. That usually helps. Peripheral vision is what you can see around you, and it is crucial, even more crucial in weather conditions and night-time driving.

A little while back, the National Police Chiefs’ Council did a one-month check of number plates for drivers’ vision, and 1.7 percent of the 3,000 drivers tested failed. That is equivalent to around 720,000 drivers.

Forty percent of motorists had not had an eyesight test in two years. So you are doing really well. Half of those who failed were not wearing the prescription lenses or glasses they should have been wearing.

It is estimated that between five and ten percent of drivers on the road at any one time do not meet the required vision standards. That is roughly equivalent to about 3 million drivers. The scope and scale of the problem is huge, and there are many things employers can do to ensure their drivers have the correct vision.

What we have just seen is how fatal incidents involving people with defective eyesight affect families. That collision was completely avoidable. Something could have been done, and those people would not have died. The families would not have been affected.

So we are going to come on to the panel discussion now, and I am going to start with a question to Dr Adeley. Coroners play a vital role in identifying causation in fatal road traffic collisions. In the three cases you dealt with in Lancaster, what led you to understand that eyesight was likely to be a significant factor in road death more widely?

JA: Good morning, and thank you very much for all coming and giving up your time. The clip you saw there was from a Channel 5 programme. The two ladies getting off the bus were Mary Cunningham and Grace Folultz, and they were hit by a driver who had many years of sight problems. That was the second and third cases that got me interested in this.

What first got me interested was a man called Peter Westwell. He was walking on the morning he was struck in broad daylight, wearing a red jacket, on a clear road. He was hit by a driver whose sight was so poor he could have been registered blind.

Coroners are not pathologists. We do not open bodies. We are a type of judge and we conduct investigations. We hold court, investigate facts, and determine how people died. This was brought to me by a police officer, Inspector Helen Parkinson.

I asked whether there were any more cases like this. This had been prosecuted for causing death by dangerous driving, the most serious prosecution with the highest standard of proof. What came back from two police forces over two years was that there were four deaths. If you multiply that across 83 coroner jurisdictions or 43 police jurisdictions, you have large numbers. And that is just the most serious prosecutions.

So the question became how could these people continue to drive with the systems we have. All the drivers involved in the four fatalities had been told they had sight problems developing over many years. They had all seen sight professionals and been told they should not be driving. None of them had informed the DVLA of what they had been told. All were otherwise upstanding members of the community, and all are now serving prison sentences of up to 11 years.

So this is not a minor issue. It is significant.

The question then becomes how large a problem we have in terms of road deaths in the UK. There are 1,600 deaths a year, 28,000 life-changing injuries, and about 60,000 hospital admissions.

You all probably go on holiday on a Boeing 737. That is a standard charter jet. That is a Boeing 737 coming out of the sky every six weeks and killing everyone on board. If I told you that, how safe would you feel about air travel?

Every other day, a Boeing 737 would crash and cause life-changing injuries. That is the scale of the problem. And on the days it does not crash, there are still enough injuries to fill hospitals. That is what we are dealing with.

If you look at the National Travel Survey, there are probably 600,000 collisions a year. So even small percentages of people with sight problems translate into large numbers of deaths and life-changing injuries.

So what role does sight play in this? Around 90 percent of sensory input for driving is visual. Sight problems are substantially under-reported. When police attend a crash, speeding, drink, drugs, and seatbelts are easy to detect. Eyesight is not. Police can only test eyesight if they suspect a problem, and by the time medical records are checked it is often too late for reporting.

Best estimates suggest there are probably 720,000 to 2.1 million drivers who would fail a sight test. That is not people who need glasses but people who cannot pass a basic sight test.

There was one study suggesting 19 percent of drivers involved in collisions believed eyesight played a role. Even at that level, the numbers are huge.

The NHS cost of hospital admissions alone is about 2 billion a year. That is a significant proportion of NHS spending.

Should you sleep safely in your beds if you are responsible for a fleet? Yes, if you have asked your drivers about eyesight tests, supported them, and checked compliance. If you have not, you may meet someone like me.

My powers are pretty extensive. I can ask the police to investigate. I have my own team of investigators. I have the HSSE on call. And you can come to a day in court where you will not have tea and biscuits. So if you have an opportunity to put this right, I would leave this lecture theatre, go and see what systems you have got, and put them in place so you cannot have a driver who is driving with defective eyesight, because your approach to safety is indicated by the number of you that have had a sight test. The rest of the population does not work this way. But thank you very much for listening.

Thank you, Dr Adeley.

Carol, I would like to come to you now. Why does self-certification of drivers’ eyesight not adequately protect road users?

Well, it does not. There are several ways in which it is not adequately protecting other road users. For example, there is a lack of awareness among many drivers that they should notify the DVLA if they have an eyesight condition that does not meet legal standards. Many do not even know what the legal standards are. We have run studies asking drivers, and most have no idea.

Once a driver gains a Group 1 licence, it is normally valid until the age of 70, and it becomes something like a badge that you use and do not really think about until renewal at 70. Many people do not realise they even have to renew it.

Although the photocard licence needs renewing every 10 years, the DVLA form includes a question asking whether your eyesight meets legal standards. During inquests, it became clear that the DVLA do not actually check whether you have ticked that box. That was the case in one of the drivers we examined, which was quite staggering.

Self-certification depends on the honesty of the driver. I am sure many people are honest, but we do not know how many are not. In inquests, it was clear that some drivers had not been honest for various reasons and had ticked the boxes when renewing their licence at 70, confirming they met the legal standards, despite being told by optometrists that they did not.

The driver who killed Peter Westwell renewed his licence four times, each time ticking that he met the legal standards, despite eye tests showing otherwise. At the inquest he said he assumed that because the DVLA had issued the licence, those questions did not apply to him. That raises concerns about how many people understand what they are signing when they renew online.

Self-certification is therefore a dangerous system.

Not all drivers are aware they have an eyesight condition. You are all here and have had eye tests, but many people do not attend regularly and will not know they have a problem, so they cannot notify the DVLA.

Police eyesight campaigns have found drivers who fail the eyesight test or who have glasses but are not wearing them while driving, which is quite staggering.

The DVLA has refused or revoked around 33,000 Group 1 licences in the last four years for eyesight, but given around 53 million full and provisional licences, that is less than 1 percent. That does not seem proportionate given the prevalence of eyesight conditions.

This suggests that mandatory eyesight testing may be the way forward.

Self-certification also means that even when optometrists suspect a patient should not drive, they do not always know whether the patient has notified the DVLA. Although there is guidance allowing direct disclosure, it is rarely done due to confidentiality concerns and professional caution.

So there are many reasons why the current system is not adequate.

Thank you, Carol. And Pam, could I come to you on that?

The law currently places responsibility on the driver to notify the DVLA, although there is a mechanism for direct disclosure. Where there is a clear failure, professionals can and do make direct disclosure. The challenge is where the case is borderline, which is more difficult to judge. But where there is clear risk, disclosure is made.

Thank you, Pam.

So, Carol has said that between passing your initial test and age 70, unless you are driving something larger than a car, there is no formal process to ensure eyesight is still adequate. I have a dodgy right eye myself and see an optician regularly, but many people never visit an optician because they do not realise their eyesight is failing.

Pam, do people generally recognise when their eyesight is declining, and what are the common signs for drivers?

It is useful to distinguish between natural, correctable vision changes and those caused by eye disease.

Many people may assume changes are due to glasses and delay getting checked, not realising there may be an underlying condition. In terms of distance vision, most people do not need glasses to meet the legal standard, and prescription changes are usually small after the mid to late teens. However, changes are gradual and can occur at any age.

People may notice they are not reading number plates as clearly as before, or that road signs are harder to see at distance. Near vision changes are also common. They may notice difficulty seeing dashboards clearly. This is called presbyopia, where the eye lens loses focusing ability.

It is important not only to meet the legal minimum standard but to optimise vision. The legal standard is only the minimum. Better correction can improve hazard detection, sign recognition, and reaction time.

Glare and night driving issues are also important. Headlight glare and halos can indicate uncorrected prescription problems or cataracts, which are treatable.

Regular sight tests are essential because they can detect early disease such as glaucoma or macular degeneration, which often have no early symptoms. Glaucoma is known as the silent thief of sight because damage can occur before symptoms appear.

Optometrists can detect early clinical signs and refer for further testing and treatment, which helps preserve vision and safety.

In the UK, routine sight tests are generally recommended every two years, though this depends on individual circumstances. If symptoms such as sudden vision loss, double vision, painful red eye, or flashes and floaters occur, people should contact an optometrist immediately rather than waiting.

There are NHS-funded eye care services available for both routine and urgent care, and opticians are usually the first point of contact.

Regular eye tests are therefore essential for both eye health and general health, as they can also detect conditions like diabetes and hypertension.

Finally, there is no real excuse not to attend regular sight tests, given accessibility and availability across the UK.

Thank you, brilliant.

Rob, I will come to you now. What role do employers play in supporting eyesight health for staff who drive for them, and what practical steps can they take?

So to explain my background, I have been a roads policing officer for 30 years, including 27 years as a senior investigating officer dealing with fatal collisions, including corporate and gross negligence manslaughter cases.

I began focusing on eyesight after a fatal collision involving an 89-year-old driver who drove the wrong way down a dual carriageway and killed a 28-year-old. He was blind in one eye and below the legal limit in the other but believed he was fit to drive.

I also dealt with an approved driving instructor who did not carry out a basic number plate test, and only later discovered a learner was registered blind.

That experience reinforced how important it is not to assume eyesight is adequate.

From a business perspective, there are three key legal frameworks. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 requires employers to ensure reasonable safety. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require risk assessments, which should include eyesight risks. And the Road Traffic Act 1988 requires drivers to meet legal vision standards.

People often think the standard is only the number plate test at 20 metres, but there is also the requirement to meet 6/12 on the Snellen scale used in formal eye tests.

Now, you can only know that if you go and see an optometrist. Third, you must have an adequate field of vision, which for most of us would be about 120 degrees. How can you get that checked? Only by going to an optometrist. So it is crazy that we have a system in this country that allows us to self-regulate when actually you need to go and have a formal test to make sure you are safe.

So as a business or organisation, if something does go wrong, you as an employee could be looking at breaching those various different acts I have mentioned. As a company, you could also be looking at corporate manslaughter or gross negligence manslaughter. As a manager, even if you think you do not have something in place, that does not matter. That is still a breach.

As a senior investigating officer dealing with over 300 fatalities in my career, I would be coming and knocking at your door and saying, what risk assessment have you got? What fitness to drive policy do you have in your system? We make sure that a vehicle is fit and healthy, serviced and maintained. But what are you doing to check if the person is fit to drive?

Within that, you need to put in a system of regular eyesight tests. You need to monitor it. You need to train people and give them education on the effects of driving at night, glare, and the importance of regular eyesight tests. You also need to support them.

That might mean a day where someone comes in and, as we have probably all experienced, they feel tired, their eyesight is not as good as it used to be, or they have an eye infection. What system do you have in place to say, today you will do office work instead? Do you still send them out to drive?

The police look at offences of using a vehicle. You can commit offences like careless and dangerous driving. A “permit” offence applies when you know someone has a problem but you negligently fail to act and still allow them to drive. It does not mean you had full knowledge, it means you failed to check.

The main things are four points: assess, educate, support, and monitor. If you have that in place, you have covered yourself. I will not be looking at you for corporate manslaughter or gross negligence manslaughter. But you cannot think it is only the driver’s responsibility. As a manager employing people to drive, it is your responsibility as well.

As Rob says, it is a shared responsibility between the driver needing to tell their employer and the employer making sure drivers feel able to report issues.

Hello, just a quick question based on what you were saying there, Rob. A lot of businesses ask people to provide business driver insurance and then leave it at checking the driving licence. They kind of stop there.

So if I am driving for a business to work locations and I was involved in an incident, I have glasses and so on, could there still be a risk of corporate manslaughter if there was a fatality?

Yes. With your responsibility as a business, if you are employing drivers, whether in the gig economy or delivery roles, there is often reliance on individuals having their own insurance and maintenance. But responsibility can still sit with the business that contracts them.

I would always say, especially with delivery drivers and self-employed van drivers working for companies like Amazon, there is a fine line in where responsibility lies. But as a senior investigating officer, I would go back to the organisation paying them and ask what they have in place to reduce risk.

Not just morally, but in terms of legal responsibility. Negligence can come from simply accepting that someone has insurance without proper checks. Eyesight is often the missing factor, and it is a major issue.

I genuinely believe around 5% of motorists would fail to read a number plate at 20 metres. As police, we can stop you, and if we suspect defective vision, we can inform the DVLA and carry out a 20 metre number plate test. If you fail, you can lose your licence within 20 to 30 minutes and only get it back after proving your eyesight is acceptable at an optometrist.

We run a national campaign called Is Your Vision Roadworthy with I Health UK. During a roadside check with Thames Valley Police, we stopped 65 vehicles and asked drivers to take a voluntary test. One failed, and three refused even though the number plate was in front of them. We had no power to enforce it because it was voluntary.

That shows the scale of the problem. If you employ drivers, you must include eyesight in your checks. It is not just the 20 metre test, but also peripheral vision and full eye health assessment. Go to an optometrist.

Thanks, Rob. Any other questions?

In an organisation with a large fleet, I am not sure whether we meet all those requirements. What resources are available for company fleets and drivers?

Driving for Better Business, run by National Highways, has a portal with lots of information. I will also be producing a video for them explaining what organisations can do. There is also the Is Your Vision Roadworthy website with videos and guidance.

You also have gov.uk, which explains legal requirements for eyesight. Driving for Better Business has very good resources.

If you want more information about vision and eye conditions, the College of Optometrists has a patient-facing website called lookafteryoureyes.org. It explains eye conditions in plain English and what to do if you have symptoms.

The best advice for driving glasses is simple: keep them well maintained, clean, properly fitted, and up to date. Scratches or worn coatings can increase glare.

Anti-reflective coatings can help reduce glare by allowing light to pass through the lens rather than scatter. Some tinted lenses are marketed for driving, but evidence shows they do not improve performance and can reduce colour perception, which can be dangerous.

If you are unsure, speak to an optician about legal and safe options. Always have a spare pair and wear the correct prescription when driving. It does not matter if it is a short journey. Every time you drive, you must meet the legal standard, just as you would not drink and drive.

One final point. 33% of people aged 40 and above have eyesight conditions, including glaucoma, cataracts, and macular degeneration. So a third of your drivers could be affected.

To summarise, only an optician can properly determine if your eyesight is good enough to drive. Employers should provide opportunities for staff to discuss eyesight and other health issues and encourage regular eye tests.

We recently saw a case of a forklift driver who had never seen an optician. There appears to be a gap in how those drivers are assessed.

For people using mobility scooters or cycling on public roads, they should meet at least the group one standard. Even in workplaces, there can still be liability in private areas, including negligence or even manslaughter in serious cases.

We have a driving for work and eyesight toolkit with links to the College of Optometrists and the Older Drivers Forum. We will also be adding Rob’s presentation to it.

Thank you very much for listening this morning.

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