To provide driver licensing administrators with heretofore unavailable information on which to establish effective vision-screening procedures for driver license applicants, a number of visual performance, personal, and driving habit characteristics of some 17,500 volunteer california driver license applicants were compared with their 3-year driving records (accidents and convictions). the vision tests included those for dynamic visual acuity, static visual acuity, field of vision, lateral phoria, low-illumination vision, glare recovery, and sighting dominance. Of these, dynamic visual acuity was most closely and consistently correlated with driving record, followed by static acuity, field of vision, and glare recovery. All relationships were in the 'expected' direction, i.e., poor vision was associated with poor record. As expected, among all variables studied, age sex, and average annual mileage play the largest role in influencing driving record. Accident and conviction frequencies increase with increasing mileage, are lower for females than for males, and are highest for the young age groups. accident and conviction rates per 100,000 vehicle-miles decrease slightly with increasing mileage, are approximately the same for both sexes, and are highest for young drivers, followed by older drivers, with middle-age drivers having the lowest rates. The report gives recommendations for additional research and suggests practical applications of the present findings. /author/.
Abstract