Citation

Shinar D, Eberhard JW. Proc. Am. Assoc. Automot. Med. Annu. Conf. 1976; 20: 241-252.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1976, Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In a previous paper, Shinar, Mayer and Treat evaluated the reliability and validity of a battery of 17 driving-related vision tests. The present paper reports progress made in the development of these tests towards the establishment of an integrated battery of license branch-oriented driver vision screening tests. In an effort to expedite the testing procedure, the eleven most promising tests of the original 17 were incorporated in a fully automated battery. The tests yield measures of static central visual acuity under conditions of optimal illumination, low levels of illumination, and glare; dynamic visual acuity, visual field, movement thresholds in the central and peripheral fields, and visual search-and-scan ability. Evaluation of the new battery is proceeding in four directions: the reliability of the tests; their validity as predictors of accident involvement; the particality of the device as a license branch test; and the development of diagnostic and remediation procedures for people who might fail the tests. The results reported below indicate that most of the tests are reliable, insofar as yielding similar results on the test and retest. This is especially true for subjects who perform well, and less so for subjects who perform poorly, i.e., those who would be candidates for failing the test. In its present form, the device is not sufficiently portable to be transferred from one branch to another as the need demands. It does, however, constitute a large improvement over the previous battery in terms of the test administration time (approximately 15 minutes), the fact that administration and scoring is totally automated, and the high degree of acceptance of this type of test for licensing procedures (over 90% of the subjects enjoyed taking the test and indicated approval of its inclusion in the license testing procedures). Validation data is incomplete at this time since 72% of the drivers tested to date have not had a single accident in the last five years. A diagnostic procedure has been developed which includes a battery of standard clinical tests and a diagnostically-oriented driver vision test battery to be installed in a vision specialist's office. Future plans include a nationwide validation effort oriented towards the establishment of pass/fail criteria that would be consistent with a driver's likelihood of accident involvement.