Eyesight and Road safety.

Everyone knows that road accidents are one of the main causes of death in the world. Every year in Europe about 45,000 people die for this reason, with 4,000 of them in Spain alone.

According to European Community statistics, one in 80 Europeans will reduce their life expectancy by 40 years and one in three will need hospital treatment for the rest of their life because of road accidents.

Among the many factors to be taken in to account, one of the main ones is the evaluation of drivers' visual capability.

Examples:
-A driver going at 100 Km/h, with 10/10 vision (normal), sees a road sign perfectly 100 metres away, giving him a four-second margin to take action. But if his visual sharpness is only 5/10, he only has 2 seconds to act.
-Going through a village, at a maximum speed of 50km/h, a danger or stop signal must be seen 50 metres ahead to be able to stop in time. This requires at least 5/10 vision.
-A vehicle going at 100km/h, requires 30 seconds to overtake another one going at 90km/h. If a car is coming the other way, those 30 seconds mean the driver needs to see 1,600 metres of road to avoid a head-on crash.
-As for seeing the shadow of a six-year-old child (1.20 metres tall), this requires 35 metres to brake if you are going at a speed of 80km/h. This can only be achieved with visual sharpness above the minimums required in examinations,

Night vision.
Five minutes are needed to go from photopic vision (light) to scotopic vision (darkness). Those first 5 minutes are really important and may be increased in the case of various eye disorders such as glaucoma and cataracts, in patients who have undergone refractive eye surgery or in patients who are taking medication that can cause nightblindness.

Conclusions.
Just as it is a good idea to check the car before the MoT test, it is also a good idea to go to the ophthalmologist before taking your driving test or renewing your licence.