The background of this study was the harmonisation of European law on the driving license regulation regarding the requirements for colour vision of professional drivers. Since the implementation in German law on July 1st, 2011, red colour defectives may obtain all Group 2 (C1, C1E, C, CE, D1, D1E, D, DE, FzF) driving licenses in Germany (previously only C1, C1E, C, CE). By now, a protanope or protanomal person with an anomalous quotient below 0.5 requires solely an elucidation on the resulting risks. The German Ophthalmological Society (DOG) and other experts have expressed concerns about this less stringent regulation. To assess these concerns, reliable epidemiological data should be researched, which allow conclusions to be drawn about the extent and relevance of protanopia and protanomaly in professional drivers for road safety. Data acquisition was performed in two different ways. First, a systematic literature search was carried out to identify relevant studies. This was done by selecting studies according to specific criteria and extracting respective data. In addition, a data search was carried out by contacting authorities, professional and scientific societies, insurers, and employer’s liability insurance associations. Furthermore, published figures were searched and institutions, occupational and company physicians as well as other experts were asked for data. Neither the data nor the literature search could provide an adequate data basis for estimating the current prevalence among professional drivers. None of the institutions contacted had structured personal data on colour vision defect diagnoses. However, through the literature search data on prevalence of protan colour vision defects in European populations could be determined and summarised in a meta-analysis. The values for the prevalence estimated herein confirm the frequently referred values with approx. 1% of male population being protanopes and approx. 2% being protans, whereas the respective prevalence in women are both clearly below 0.1%. A data basis for estimating the accident risk among protan professional drivers could be established through literature search and to a limited extent only. Except on study, published in 1996, all studies identified are published before 1980. Therefore, it may be questioned whether the circumstances at that time (road conditions, traffic volume, lighting equipment of motor vehicles, technical requirements for traffic signs etc.) are comparable to today‘s conditions. The identified and included studies on accident risk do not provide any overall statistical proof of an increase in the accident risk for or due to protanope, protanomal or protan motor vehicle drivers, so that the current data situation does not justify a withdrawal of the change to Appendix 6 of the German driving license regulations as part of the harmonisation of European law as of July 1st, 2011. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting