Purpose:

To evaluate the late-term visual adequateness of driver license holders.

Material and Method:

A total of 160 driving license holders with a mean age of 48.39±10.86 (range, 21-73) years who attended our outpatient clinic underwent routine ophthalmologic examination, and their driver license data were evaluated under their consent.

Results:

The spectacle need for 160 people who got their driving license with a mean of 19.46±10.07 (21-73) years ago was 26/160 (16.25%) by the time they got their license, whereas 118/160 (73.75%) - by the date we evaluated them. Six people (3.75%) were not using spectacles although they had refractive errors that should be corrected to be able to drive by law, and 2 people (1.25%) had driving license although they did not have enough visual acuity to get a driving license. The first ophthalmologic examination that these 160 cases had was a mean of 12.29±8.21 (1-25) years after they got their driving license.

Discussion:

When compared with the time people first got their driving license, the rate of refractive errors that affected visual acuity was increased 5 fold in a mean of twenty years. In our country, the inspection of motor vehicles after the third year of their landing and then in every two years is obligatory. The periodic health evaluation of the drivers is only obligatory if there is a detected progressive eye disease by the time they got their driving license. As there is no obligation for periodic examination, people who were healthy when getting the driving license can drive life long, even if their ability to drive safely is impaired due to certain vision changes. We think that in order to decrease the amount of traffic accidents in our country, not only motor vehicles but also driving license holders should have obligatory periodic health evaluation.

Keywords: Driving license, ophthalmic examination, traffic accident, visual acuity