Overview
- Ministers have opened a consultation on requiring motorists aged 70 and above to take eyesight tests every three years at licence renewal, with those who fail potentially removed from the road.
- Bereaved families welcome the move but press for optometrist-signed proof of vision at each renewal and routine checks for all drivers at set intervals, citing fatal cases where poor eyesight went undeclared.
- The plan also consults on lowering the drink-drive limit, introducing minimum learning periods for new drivers, mandating 18 vehicle safety technologies, creating new national road-safety bodies, and cracking down on illegal ghost number plates and drug driving.
- A coroner has condemned the UK’s self-certification regime as the “laxest in Europe,” with reporting citing around 56,000 drivers a year failing sight tests yet continuing to drive and estimates that up to 2.1 million licence holders may not meet legal visual standards.
- Advocacy groups question the choice of age 70 and warn of testing capacity and cost issues, while international experts point to the case for consistent, more frequent eyesight checks regardless of age.