My wife is 100% blind in her left eye due to closed angle glaucoma. Her eye surgeon has told her that as long as she is comfortable, she can drive her car. Now, the Doc is neither the DMV, nor is he the Law. What happens if she is in an accident, and the other driver finds out she is blind in one eye?
Umm…how many eyes does it take to see? I could drive fine with just one eye. (In fact, the vision in my left eye sucks. If I lost my right eye, I couldn’t drive without corrective lenses.) So long as your wife has one good eye, the DMV shouldn’t care.
Since they let folks with just one eye fly airplanes, I don’t see why they won’t let someone with one eye drive a car.
Some states may mandate side mirrors or a certain minimum size of mirrors, to maximize the driver’s ability to see.
Better watch that vision in her good eye, though.
It works that way in my state. I was required to take a vision test this year to renew my driver’s license. I passed. couldn’t have passed if 2 good eyes were required.
Binocular vision is not critical to driving (or flying), since at the distances one is normally focused on while driving, the brain can use cues other than parallax to gauge distance, and most people adapt just fine.
Being able to see out of one eye will likely affect her depth perception. But, if she’s comfortable driving, then her doctor may be able to write a letter to the dmv stating such, or so the Tennessee DMV’s website says. If I were her, I wouldn’t get behind the wheel until the DMV had given me the okay. But I’m a wuss.
-Lil
Cite? One eye won’t do in TN?
I think it’s your job to post a cite rfgdxm
From http://tennessee.gov/safety/dlhandbook/2004chap13.pdf (Warning: PDF document)
Bolding mine.
The OP may find the NTSB report Medical Oversight of Noncommercial Drivers to be of interest. In the appendices, it lists those states which obligate physicians to report deficiencies to their respective DMV agencies, and also those who offer immunity to a person or physician who in good faith reports an unfit driver.
Note: large .pdf
IANAL (at all). But I suspect that if she is in an accident, and she is at fault, the DMV’s rules and the doctor’s orders wouldn’t prevent the other driver from bringing her blind eye into a suit if he were so inclined.
How about Al Pacino’s character in Scent of a Woman?
My boyfriend, who only has one eye, recently obtained his driver’s license in Wisconsin. So it is legal to drive with one eye. He’s never gotten in an accident, but he does say that he has to pay more attention than the average driver in order to be safe.
However, the DMV can be pretty lax. My grandmother is legally blind (macular degeneration) but can still drive within a certain distance from her house. This might have something to do with living alone in rural Kansas, with no neighbors within walking distance. Anyway, they’re letting a blind crazy lady get behind the wheel, not necessarily a good idea.
Oh, definitely.
But that doesn’t mean the jury will necessarially hold it against the one-eyed driver. I sat on a jury for a case involving a car accident where one lawyer made a huge deal out of the fact one gal had really thick glasses and they other had “perfect” vision. Didn’t sit too well with us - everyone on the jury wore glasses and some of us were blind as bats - and that still didn’t explain why the lady with “perfect” vision ran the red light.
What Broomstick said. Kinda hard to hold a disability against someone when the DMV doesn’t have a problem with it and there’s no prosthetic or vehicle equipment the person could employ to mitigate the disability.
Criminal: she’s clear if DMV clears her
Civil: she’s clear if a reasonable person with her disability could be expected to operate a motor vehicle safely. Her Dr.'s suggestion that she can drive if she’s comfortable, & the DMV not disallowing her this priviledge, I’d say she’s good to go.