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Abstract
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A survey of state requirements for motor vehicle operators reveals interesting and shocking facts. The figures were compiled by the American Optical Company and certified by the motor vehicle officials of the various states. A wide discrepancy exists in the * visual requirements for licensing in spite of the fact that, according to safety officials, over 90% of all driving decisions are based on vision.
Age requirements vary from 13 to 18 years. A mentally or physically unfit person is disqualified in all the 50 states, but the facts are that very few states provide immunity from civil suit to the physician who reports such an individual. An examination of some sort is required in all states but the standards vary widely, and reciprocity is so frequent that a person may obtain a license by reciprocity who could not qualify by initial examination in the reciprocating state. All require testing in the laws and the meaning of signs, but visual acuity requirements vary from 20/25 to 20/70. All but eight states require good color vision--which has very little to do with driving safety, color blind people being perfectly capable of distinguishing red from green by tonal density change. Only thirteen states require delineation of the visual fields even though a person with tubular fields is so limited that great risk obtains if he drives the distance of one block.
Only four states require re-examination on expiration of the license periods, and a mere ten insist upon examination after attaining what may be considered old age. Most states do not require re-examination until after a complaint or revocation of a license.
One additional fallacy in testing might be pointed out which has to do with the actual driving tests themselves. Potential licensees are tested at speeds of 20-25 miles per hour under conditions of urban traffic, but they are allowed to drive vehicles of 200-300 horsepower on open highways where speeds of 60-70 miles per hour are legal. Many of them are totally unaware of the limitations of their vehicles or the difference in handling characteristics. But discussion of setting up of good tests belongs in another series of chapters.
The conclusions to be drawn from this review are rather evident. There must be some sort of standardization for first examinations and then periodic re-examinations before it will be possible to use license data for any sort of analysis into the basic causes of the remarkable (38,000 deaths last year) loss of life on the highways. |