Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2014 12:25:21 GMT
I have a friend who no longer drives at night. A fair bit younger than me I might add.
I have told him he needs to go to the optician and get things sorted out. Having recently had emergency eye surgery I am maybe a bit paranoid about that, but so what.
He won't go and tells me that he is worried that if he goes the optician might in some way report him up the line so he loses his driving licence. I have told him to go, and tell the optician that he uses the bus.
So, does anyone know if the optician can report a person to say the DVLA resulting in them losing their licence?
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spot
Silver Surfer
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Post by spot on Feb 11, 2014 13:01:35 GMT
No more than any other concerned member of the public. Opticians aren't granted any rights, privileges, responsibilities or monopolies by law (unlike, for example, solicitors or police officers), they're Joe Public. Do you or I have a public duty to report a driver whose eyesight we know to be substandard? I suspect we do, but not to DVLA. The people to ring would be the police non-emergency line or Crimestoppers. The optician is under the exact same obligation. And no, the much-abused Data Protection Act is utterly irrelevant as it practically always is.
If his eyesight can be proved in court to have been substandard by the time of an accident then his insurance is very likely void. The problem with him taking an eyetest is that it would provide such proof. After failing such an eyetest he is himself legally obliged to surrender his driving license immediately, the discretion of the optician doesn't come into it.
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Post by ARENA on Feb 11, 2014 13:51:39 GMT
I was having difficulty with night driving , though not through deteriorating eyesight. It was the oncoming lights that I found the problem.
I have now invested in non-reflective lenses and all is fine.................
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2014 14:08:50 GMT
Interesting take Spot.
Some years back I had a friend who was diabetic. He often borrowed my Land Rover as I owned the rights to fell timber in a nearby wood. We would haul that out either together or on our own and what we did not need we sold. Happy days of a trailer full of logs delivered to a local pub in exchange for about £30 and a free pint or so. I would frequently leave piles of mud on the road outside the pub as big as road islands which had fallen out of the wheel arches while I was enjoying my pint.
However one day a policeman knocked on my door. 'Do you own a Land Rover No ******' Yes. There has been an accident.
I checked and my friend was OK, having piled into the side of the lane after a diabetic attack, my Landrover was in the road outside not particularly damaged with his dog in the back.
However the Police who had been called to the accident by a member of the public thinking my friend was drunk wrote to the DVLA telling them that Mr x had a medical condition of which they should be aware. And his driving licence was withdrawn.
I did not have a problem with that.
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Post by cobden28 on Feb 16, 2014 17:48:41 GMT
I think your friend would be well advised to get himself checked out by an optician ASAP just to have the state and condition of his eyesight confirmed by a trained person - he can say he got to the appointment by bus, if he's worried. Maybe all your friend needs is different lenses to cover night-time driving - which an optician could certainly arrange. Why not have 'daytime' glasses and 'night-time' glasses, if he does a lot of driving at night?
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