Driving: Visual Impairment
(asked on 11th May 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of how many (a) accidents and (b) casualties have been caused by drivers who have (i) failed eye tests or (ii) been found to have insufficient eyesight in each year for which information is available.
The tables below shows the number of road accidents involving personal injury and road casualties in which the contributory factor of driver/rider with uncorrected, defective eyesight was reported, by severity, in Great Britain for the years 2005 to 2016.
Number of accidents where a contributory factor of driver/rider with uncorrected, defective eyesight was reported1
Year | Fatal | Serious | Slight | Total | Percentage of all reported accidents2 |
2005 | 10 | 35 | 181 | 226 | 0.15% |
2006 | 4 | 47 | 158 | 209 | 0.14% |
2007 | 5 | 41 | 161 | 207 | 0.15% |
2008 | 18 | 44 | 163 | 225 | 0.17% |
2009 | 9 | 37 | 145 | 191 | 0.15% |
2010 | 5 | 36 | 193 | 234 | 0.19% |
2011 | 9 | 44 | 197 | 250 | 0.21% |
2012 | 6 | 59 | 186 | 251 | 0.22% |
2013 | 9 | 51 | 182 | 242 | 0.22% |
2014 | 9 | 56 | 195 | 260 | 0.22% |
2015 | 10 | 48 | 174 | 232 | 0.21% |
2016 | 7 | 57 | 139 | 193 | 0.19% |
1. Includes only cases where a police officer attended the scene and in which a contributory factor was reported. |
2. These numbers exclude cases where no contributory factor was reported. |
Number of casualties where a contributory factor of driver/rider with uncorrected, defective eyesight was reported1
Year | Killed | Serious | Slight | Total | Percentage of all reported accidents2 |
2005 | 10 | 41 | 293 | 344 | 0.17% |
2006 | 4 | 57 | 243 | 304 | 0.15% |
2007 | 5 | 51 | 244 | 300 | 0.15% |
2008 | 19 | 52 | 258 | 329 | 0.18% |
2009 | 9 | 45 | 214 | 268 | 0.15% |
2010 | 5 | 39 | 286 | 330 | 0.20% |
2011 | 9 | 53 | 301 | 363 | 0.22% |
2012 | 6 | 65 | 279 | 350 | 0.22% |
2013 | 9 | 57 | 261 | 327 | 0.22% |
2014 | 11 | 66 | 307 | 384 | 0.24% |
2015 | 10 | 54 | 281 | 345 | 0.23% |
2016 | 7 | 63 | 182 | 252 | 0.18% |
1. Includes only cases where a police officer attended the scene and in which a contributory factor was reported. |
2. These numbers exclude cases where no contributory factor was reported. |
Source: DfT STATS19
Please note that not all accidents are included in the contributory factor data. Only accidents where the police attended the scene and reported at least one contributory factor are included. A total of 73% of accidents reported to the police in 2016 met these criteria.
Contributory factors (CFs for short) provide some insight into why and how road accidents occur. They are designed to give the key actions and failures that led directly to the actual impact to aid investigation of how accidents might be prevented. When police officers attend the scene of an accident, they are able to select up to six factors they believe contributed to the accident (for each vehicle and casualty involved). Please note that this does not assign blame for the accident to any specific road user, but gives an indication of which factors the attending officer thought contributed to the accident. Officers do not need to carry out a full investigation of the incident before allocating CFs; they usually use professional judgement about what they can see at the scene.