Vision and Driving
According to road traffic accident statistics, there were nearly 1.21 million road traffic accidents in Germany in the first six months of 2025.1 The German Professional Association of Ophthalmologists (BVA) estimates that nearly 300,000 accidents are caused by poor vision in Germany every year. 11.5 percent of all road users between the ages of 50 and 59 are no longer able to drive at night due to their vision.2
Optometrists and ophthalmologists were involved in the topic of “vision and driving” from an early stage. A good example of this is issue 5 of the series of publications by the German Association of Optometry (DGO) from 1962, which contained excellent articles on this topic. In this compendium, leading experts from the UK, the US, and Germany discussed topics such as “mesoptic myopia,” “vision in nighttime traffic,” “vision field of the driver,” “vision of cataract patients in traffic,” and “color vision.”3
Nathan Efron, editor of the internationally renowned peer-reviewed journal “Clinical and Experimental Optometry”, also published an interesting editorial on the topic of “driving vision research” in 2023.4 Based on a literature analysis of the Scopus database conducted on October 24, 2022, he determined the number of publications on the topic of “vision and driving” from 1920 to 2022. It was interesting to note that until 1960 there were relatively few publications on this subject, but after 1998 the number of publications increased exponentially.
Looking at recent publications on the topic of “vision and driving” in this context, two papers from 2025 are particularly interesting. For example, Kerwin et al. examined the driving performance of study participants under three different lighting conditions in a driving simulator.5 Among other things, the study found that visual acuity and contrast sensitivity had a statistically significant influence on average speed. There was also a statistically significant correlation between the age of the test subjects and their reaction time in identifying objects and their lane behavior.
In another interesting study, Woi et al. investigated the relationship between tear film stability, dry eye symptoms, and visual acuity during nighttime driving in Malaysian adults.6 The study found that drivers with poor tear film stability and severe dry eye symptoms may have significant difficulties driving at night. Inter alia, participants with shorter NIBUT reported significantly greater difficulties when driving at night than participants with normal NIBUT.
This issue of OCL also focuses on the subject of “vision and driving” with four articles, and I am delighted to have found such highly qualified authors for this topic.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to wish all readers and authors all the best for 2026 and hope you continue to enjoy OCL.
Bibliography:
[1] Statistische Bundesamt /(2025). Straßenverkehrsunfälle im 1. Halbjahr 2025: Zahl der Unfälle um 2 % gesunken. Pressemitteilung Nr. 312 vom 22. August 2025. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2025/08/PD25_312_46241.html, Referencing: 17 October 2025
[2] Berufsverband der Augenärzte (BVA). (2022). Sehen im Straßenverkehr. https://www.augeninfo.de/offen/index.php?thema=418, Referencing: 17 October 2025.
[3] Deutsche Gesellschaft für Optometrie (DGO) (1962). Sehen und Verkehrssicherheit. Schriftenreihe der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Optometrie, Heft 5.
[4] Efron N. (2023). Driving vision research. Clin. Exp. Optom., 106, 225-226.
[5] Kerwin T, Wrabel C, Yu D, Lu ZL, Yang J. Mesopic and glare driving performance in a driving simulator. Traffic Inj Prev. 2025;26(6):679-685.
[6] Woi PJ, Pathmanathan P, Sieh SYH, Abd Rahman MH, Abdul Mutalib H, Bhandari M, Nordin N, Wan Din WMH. Relationship between tear film stability, dry eye symptoms, and night driving vision among Malaysian adults. PLoS One. 2025 Mar 26;20(3):e0320223.