Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

While some people are born with vision problems, others suffer vision challenges as they grow older. If you have poor vision or a health condition that affects your vision, it can impact negatively on your ability to drive safely.

Knowing the signs of potential vision problems, what can happen if you get in an accident because of poor vision and how to improve your vision before it gets worse can give you confidence and help you stay safe behind the wheel.

Your visual clarity is essential in driving safely. For instance, colour vision and contrast sensitivity are needed to adhere to traffic lights and see road signs, signals and pedestrians during various times of day and different weather conditions.

Certain vision problems can reduce visual acuity, making it more difficult to clearly see other vehicles, signs, potential hazards and traffic lights.

In February 2020, the third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, held in Stockholm (Sweden), claimed for unprecedented efforts to halve road fatalities in one decade, placing the urgent need for improving road safety among the “Global Goals 2030”, through a renewed political commitment for taking effective actions and developing further measures and strategies strengthening community health and welfare.

Two years ago, in August 2020, the United Nations endorsied this declaration by adopting the resolution dubbed A/RES/74/299, proclaiming the period 2021- 2030 as a new Decade of Action for Road Safety.

There is, therefore, an explicit reference to road safety into the United Nations agenda for Sustainable Development. Further, in the 82nd Annual Session of the Inland Transport Committee (ITC), the widest regulatory platform of United Nations for road transport, adopted a set of recommendations for strengthening national road safety systems.

These recommendations came into force April 2020, constituting a universal road safety blueprint that can be applied in any country, helping to identify and address key gaps through a more articulated and interconnected action.

A call to governments to adopt measures aimed to promote good vision for all road users was included.

In brief, vision is the main source of information while driving with some studies showing up to 90 per cent of the information acquired during driving has a visual nature. Proper vision while on the road allows drivers to perform with accuracy driving and related tasks and to make life-saving decisions. According to the World Report on Vision published by the World Health Organisation, at least 2.2 billion people around the world have substantial vision impairments.

Further, and although there is a high consensus on the fact that vision constitutes a key factor in this field, organisations mandated to ensure road safety, and those tasked to award driving licences in Kenya ignore visual health among their core guidelines, and road users tend to be scarcely aware on this problem, yet evidence depicts the significant impact that vision problems have on road crashes.

Although the number of studies in this field is still limited, including in Kenya, results tend to be clear and coherent, overall reinforcing the importance of retrieving more empirical knowledge, which would be useful for developing effective policies adapted to the country as a manner to meet United Nations’ goals for road safety.

Guidelines may include objective screening for vision, colour vision, and visual fields under standardised testing conditions should be mandatory for obtaining and renewing the driving license. Those who fail the initial screening should undergo a protocol-based comprehensive evaluation, including relevant objective tests for visual function by an ophthalmologist and certified if fit to drive.

The writer is a certified clinical officer