Hmm, will this prevent me from getting a racing licence?

[blue nose]

With a a dodgy eye you could race touring cars...Never had an eye test either but I did go through a lot of nose cones.

[Al Weyman]

When I said the system let him down I was refer to the fact it was not diagnosed whan he was a 5 year old kid. As for now well yes I agree the onus is on him.

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by PTRACER

I can't help but feel I'm being treated a bit of an invalid for having one dodgy eye, especially with comments such as, "...you could be a danger to the rest of us"!!! I have been on the road for three years now, I'm self-employed and I use my car to drive to customers' houses and back, hence my road car racks up a lot of mileage. I've had my road licence for three years and touch wood, not even come close to being involved in an accident.

The thing is you could be missing things and not even know it. If you have a dodgy eye the brain will compensate.
I have a dodgy left eye, I didn't know about it until I started getting headaches after driving long distances. It turned out the vision in the left eye was down, due to an accident when I was 10, but the right compensated and I was unaware until I had an eye test at the age of around 30.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by PTRACER

I can't help but feel I'm being treated a bit of an invalid for having one dodgy eye, especially with comments such as, "...you could be a danger to the rest of us"!!! I have been on the road for three years now, I'm self-employed and I use my car to drive to customers' houses and back, hence my road car racks up a lot of mileage. I've had my road licence for three years and touch wood, not even come close to being involved in an accident.

There's a Specsavers in Romford town centre, a mile or so away from me, I'll go there tomorrow morning.

The thing is - you may not have had an accident, but unless you know what is wrong with your eye, its quite possible you COULD be a danger. I'm not saying you are of course, just that it's a possibility, and you need to find out whether that is the case. The comment above about insurance is spot on - if you are in an accident with an undisclosed 'disability' your insurance will probably be invalid.

[PTRACER]

If I'm missing something, it doesn't seem to have hindered my driving. Two physically deformed limbs didn't hinder Archie Scott-Brown.

Anyway, I'll "report" back when I know what it is... (if I ever find out, though I WILL make sure it is investigated)

[Tim Falce]

I hardly think Archie Scott-Brown is relevant to this discussion. If you are so confident then why not just go for the medical and say nothing?

[Piglet]

Originally Posted by PTRACER

If I'm missing something, it doesn't seem to have hindered my driving. Two physically deformed limbs didn't hinder Archie Scott-Brown.

I knew you were going to take this approach, that's why I wanted to stop the "lots of people are fine with one eye" discussions

Let's break this down, you know you have a problem with your vision, you've had it for years (how old are you?) and you've done nothing about it. You've not disclosed it to the DVLA or your insurers. You've not seen a GP, you've allowed one optician that you think did a poor job stop you from accessing a proper diagnosis.

You might be perfectly safe, you might not be, I don't know and you don't either and you won't know until you get seen by someone who is able to make a proper assessment and diagnosis.

I'm sure you're probably worried about the outcome and that might well be putting you off getting it looked at but please just get on with it and then you will know what you're facing and can deal with it. Hopefully it will be perfectly fine and you will have worried for nothing.

[Peter Dunne]

Wise words from Piglet. You really need to get a proper medical assessment of your condition. Until you do then all discussion is heresy.

I notice from your profile that you are only 20 so if it is possible to correct your vision through surgery then age is on your side. If your vision has been poor for the past 15 years, I wonder why you have done nothing about it? Is it fear of a possible operation?

I had surgery on both eyes a couple of years ago and believe me I was stressing about it big time. To put it into perspective: I lost half of my wedding ring finger in a stupid accident caused by my own carelessness and that was nothing compared to the trepidation I felt before my eye op. I suppose that most of my fear was driven by the fact that I would be awake for the op relying only on a local anesthetic. But I have to say that my fears were totally unfounded. The op was a total success and completely pain free.
I now have 6/6 vision and am racing quite happily.

[PTRACER]

Rest assured, Piglet, I'm not blasé about the issue, my main concern is having my licence application rejected due to a medical condition (if we assume it's something that can be diagnosed, but not treated).

I only became specifically worried about it from a "will it stop me getting my licence?" point of view when my friend's father told me he knew someone who had a bit of a heart problem and was told he couldn't have a licence and should try and apply again in five years. Now, I know obviously that's a completely different medical matter, but now I know that they had their application rejected on medical grounds, I have become worried as well. At my age, five years is a long time to wait.

Peter - I haven't done anything about it because it has never been an issue for me. It's always been there and it hasn't ever got worse. And there has never been a moment in my life where I've needed good vision in both eyes.

It would be different if it was a pain in my back that prevented me from walking, or if it was a condition that developed over a period of days/weeks/months, or something that affected not just one eye, but both.

[Peter Dunne]

Fair enough. The reason that I mentioned your age is that the ability for eyes to recover from an op lessens with age. Even though you have not (until now) felt the need to have good vision in both eyes, it might be prudent to do something about it now while age is on your side. My father in law has had poor vision all his life but because he did nothing about it until relatively recently, he has had to have four ops, with only minor success. In the words of his consultant "if we caught this years ago it would be a different story now"

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that, racing apart, it is worth getting checked out properly now and not when its too late. The inescapable fact when it comes to vision is that it doesn't improve with age.

[JohnD]

Why has NO ONE consulted their Blue Book?
I wouldn't expect any one not doing medicals to be familiar.

C(a)26, Eyesight standards. [I paraphrase]
- Min. acuity 6/6 with both eys open
- Min. Binoc field at least 120 degrees horiz. NO DEFECTS IN THE CENTRAL 20 DEGREES [I suppose this will affect, and could ban, PTracer].
- Shatterproof specs or soft contacts
- Lose sight in one eye and you have to wait five years before you can have a licence.
- Double vison is an absolute no-no.
- "Normal" colour vision - distinguish red/green

Epilepsy and diabetes mean that you can only have a licence if the MSAs own Consultant says you are fit, so the sight regs are more liberal. Was the poster really serious about "being disadvantaged" by being denied a licence because of disability?

John

[PTRACER]

Have my eyetest booked for tomorrow...I'm hoping it will turn out to be something that can be sorted.

[Peter Dunne]

Good luck with that. Be sure to let us know how you get on.

Happy 21st birthday btw

[PTRACER]

Thank you

[Mr.Jingles]

Originally Posted by JohnD

Why has NO ONE consulted their Blue Book?
I wouldn't expect any one not doing medicals to be familiar.

C(a)26, Eyesight standards. [I paraphrase]
- Min. acuity 6/6 with both eys open
- Min. Binoc field at least 120 degrees horiz. NO DEFECTS IN THE CENTRAL 20 DEGREES [I suppose this will affect, and could ban, PTracer].
- Shatterproof specs or soft contacts
- Lose sight in one eye and you have to wait five years before you can have a licence.
- Double vison is an absolute no-no.
- "Normal" colour vision - distinguish red/green

Epilepsy and diabetes mean that you can only have a licence if the MSAs own Consultant says you are fit, so the sight regs are more liberal. Was the poster really serious about "being disadvantaged" by being denied a licence because of disability?

John

You got to it before I did

I have a corrected squint/lazy eye (it's a bit more complicated than that, but hey). As a baby of just over 6 months old I had several operations to correct the source of the squint (eye muscles) and patching to attempt to resolve the "lazy eye". The patching didn't work however, leaving me with an interesting astigmatism (google 'phoria') that is relatively rare and a clear dominant eye (left).

Does it cause me problems? Not really. I have complete FOV, reasonable depth perception (it will never be brilliant, but the mind is a brilliant tool and naturally 'learns' how to judge distance subconciously by parralax, known relative sizing and speed etc....). As the lesser of two eyes it's perfectly passable, but if (god forbid) I lost my left eye I wouldn't be able to drive or read normal sized print, I would still be far from blind though.

All of this declared to the relevant people throughout my life, including my GP and the MSA. Not a problem.

Anyway, there was a point in all that blurb - and it is this: Any problem can be dealt with, providing you know what the problem is. And in this case, the original poster really needs to know their own capabilities and have them tested - thats the only way to be sure either way on the licence front. Regardless of that, surely knowing what is wrong is important to you? That should be enough of a driver in itself.

As for driving on the road without declaration... well, it's just plain against the law. You won't be insured if anything happens and they find out about the condition (regardless of if it contributed to the accident or not) and you are gambling that your eye won't just pop a big ol blood haemorrhage whilst you are driving along (black marks on your vision could be a problem with your retina for example). Thats why the law is in place - so we can prove we are safe to drive, not just believe it or 'know' it ourselves.

[JohnD]

Mr.J,
Would that we all had to "prove we are safe to drive".
Sad to say, the problems are further inside than the eye.
Such as the Post Office driver who overtook a line of standing traffic inc. me, in the face of on-coming cars which were forced to the side of the road? He was not ancient, or a 'yoof', just an unsafe driver, a unsafe professional driver.

The PO manager to who I reported him thanked me, as they had a current safety campaign. "We're clamping down on on things like this, like courtesy, wearing their seat belts."
Hmmmmmmmmm.
John

[Al Weyman]

Funny you should say that John several; years ago two post office drivers having a 'race' did exactly the same near where I live and the result was they both died.

Re insurance as some may know I lost my son at 18 in a car crash 11 years ago along with the young girl alongside him, it also badly injured 4 other people and wrecked two cars so the insurance payout must have been colossal. Now when I bought him the Mini (worst days work of my life but there you go he loved them) it had wide wheels and flared arches and I insisted he declare that to the insurance company who charged us another hundred quid for the extras.

Now at the time he thought this most unfair and got the hump with me for making him disclose it (he was 17 at the time). Well in all this unhappy affair thats the one thing I am glad I got right because it meant all the third party claimants would have been paid out in full no argument as I am sure the insurance company would have wriggled if we had'nt have declared so you see it does happen unfortunately.

[Peter Dunne]

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

Re insurance as some may know I lost my son at 18 in a car crash 11 years ago along with the young girl alongside him, it also badly injured 4 other people and wrecked two cars so the insurance payout must have been colossal. Now when I bought him the Mini (worst days work of my life but there you go he loved them) it had wide wheels and flared arches and I insisted he declare that to the insurance company who charged us another hundred quid for the extras.

Thats very sad Al. As a father myself, I can only imagine what you went through/are still going through.

It does however highlight, as you say, the importance of everything being right both physically and insurance wise whether a vehicle is on the road or the race track.

Deepest condolences.

[Bob Pearson]

I have had a very similar problem since the 80's except that it is more of a light green blbo than a line. I always manage to pass my racing medical each year, although that eye registers as less efficient than the other. You are allowed to wear glasses during the examination, so if you found that a simple pair of reading glasses helped you can use them. You are probably like me in that with both eyes open all looks normal and the vision over a distance is fine.

[GORDON STREETER]

Don't worry PTRACER you'll make an excellent BTCC driver

[Al Weyman]

Thanks Peter.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by PTRACER

Peter - I haven't done anything about it because it has never been an issue for me. It's always been there and it hasn't ever got worse. And there has never been a moment in my life where I've needed good vision in both eyes.

I would have thought (race) driving would require good vision in both eyes...

Glad to see an appt is booked though. I certainly woudl want to know if something was wrong (you never know what it might be or whether is could get dramatically worse)

James

[Chris Y]

Originally Posted by JohnD

The PO manager to who I reported him thanked me, as they had a current safety campaign. "We're clamping down on on things like this, like courtesy, wearing their seat belts."

Yeah, they've really been clamping down on courtesy around here. Doesn't seem to be any room for that in today's Post Office!

[Mr.Jingles]

Originally Posted by JohnD

Mr.J,
Would that we all had to "prove we are safe to drive".
Sad to say, the problems are further inside than the eye.

True enough - but there is no test yet available for drivelikeanidiotism

Originally Posted by Al Weyman

Re insurance as some may know I lost my son at 18 in a car crash 11 years ago along with the young girl alongside him, it also badly injured 4 other people and wrecked two cars so the insurance payout must have been colossal. Now when I bought him the Mini (worst days work of my life but there you go he loved them) it had wide wheels and flared arches and I insisted he declare that to the insurance company who charged us another hundred quid for the extras.

Now at the time he thought this most unfair and got the hump with me for making him disclose it (he was 17 at the time). Well in all this unhappy affair thats the one thing I am glad I got right because it meant all the third party claimants would have been paid out in full no argument as I am sure the insurance company would have wriggled if we had'nt have declared so you see it does happen unfortunately.

I know it was a long time ago but still, my condolences. I've recently become a father myself and I fret constantly about the world we live in, what could happen to her etc etc.... especially as my wife is a Nanny and she spends quite a bit of time with her in the car.

Originally Posted by JamesH

I would have thought (race) driving would require good vision in both eyes...

Certainly it's would be a big plus

It's always a matter of degrees with these things - in my case, the problem (specifically) is to do with muscle control and a developed lazy eye condition, rather than a lack of sight. I am definately not doing to miss a car or a flag with it, but I couldn't read with it.

Still, if I lost the left it'd be game over for me, really. So please, only throw darts at my right eye

Time with the problem also helps - it's hard to explain, but the issues it can cause (e.g. depth perception) are mitigated by experience as you go on and become less of a problem. Ironically it improved my target shooting, so says a semi-pro anyway! (can't afford that now mind - all the money goes on Baby or Car.... sometimes wife, bills, dog )

[AU N EGL]

Originally Posted by GORDON STREETER

Don't worry PTRACER you'll make an excellent BTCC driver

Wait a minute Gordon. Dont these BTCC guys drive with blinders On?

Now I have not seen many BTCC races but the ones I have seen seem to be more crash fests then races...