Abstract
Because visual functional problems and eye disease are more prevalent in the older population, a natural hypothesis is that visual disorders are the major cause of driving difficulty in elderly individuals. Despite the intuitive appeal of a link between vision and driving ability, studies have found only weak correlations between visual deficits (e.g., visual acuity, visual field loss) and vehicle crashes. These correlations were often statistically significant due to very large sample sizes but accounted for less than 5 percent of the crash variance in these studies. Thus, these data are insignificant in reaching the practical goal of successfully identifying which older drivers are seriously at risk for crash involvement. (A)