I had a small surgery on my left eye this morning, and the hospital was kinda reluctant to let me drive home. So much so that they sprung for a taxi.
The main deason was because of the drugs, but they also mentioned the eyepatch. The nurses were, btw, very understanding and helpful. Love 'em. Esp. Jackie. 
Okay, here’s my question;
Can a person who’s blind in one eye get a driver’s license? It could be a problem if one was driving and suddenly lost vision in the good eye. But, a foriegn thing in one eye usually causes a sympathetic reaction (tearing, blinking etc) in the other one anyway.
Peace,
mangeorge
Yes. Through personal anecdotal evidence through a few friends I have known who have only one functioning eye, you can easily get a driver’s licence. Sometimes they require that your car have special modifications made to it (like rearview mirrors at the front of the car rather than the doors which one of the 2 friends had) but I am not sure of other things.
On a related note, I have a friend who is legally blind that I went to college with but she is allowed to drive as well as her glasses are usually enough to correct the majority of the problems she has. She can’t read anything without them and putting them on caused me to get an instant headache.
I used to work with a one eyed truck driver. He had a CDL and hauled hazardous waste.
This is in NY
I am good freinds with a guy who is totally blind in one eye and has a heavy prescription on the other. He went down to the DMV when he was 16, took the eye test (with his glasses on) and passed it. He took the driving test and passed it. They issued him a licsence no problemo.
Incidentally I once asked him how he makes up for the lack of depth perception, and he doesn’t really ‘know’ he has a lack of depth perception, per se. He can only say that he has trained himself to judge intervening space by physical markers (like objects present, the texture of the ground, etc.) and judging their distance relative to eachother/himself when they move.
It should be noted that he drove for years, even for a year or two as a pizza delivery boy. It should also be noted that he hates driving and finds it to be one of the single-most stressful things he can possibly do. I can only imagine. He no longer drives, but it is strictly his choice. Perhaps vision tests in other states/countries would preclude him from driving, but not here in AZ.
Then she is not “legally blind,” which is defined as vision less than 20/200 in the weaker eye with best correction. (There is another definition having to do with tunnell vision, but the formula is sort of complicated.)
I am legally blind in one eye. Have been as long as I can remember. I have had a drivers license since age 17. Now every time i have to review it they give me the eye test and say… “ok now tell me what you see with your right eye” I say “nothing”. They look at me funny, I explain and they give me my license.
I have really bad depth perception… hence my hard time with certain sports and such. Hoever i have enough vision in my bad eye to see shapes and colors and such. SO whereas I can’t see things per se I can see that something is over to the side of me and i turn my head.
Basically I know my limitations and drive to suit them. I avoid driving at night when I can, I favor the left side of lanes and such and i always use my mirror and look over to the right side of the car often.
Thanks to all. There is the slight possibility that I could lose the vision in my left eye (glaucoma), and I’m not in a position to give up driving just yet.
Peace,
mangeorge
My two cents.
My mother has been totally blind in her right eye for years. She still drives, quite well, in fact, although less at night, which probably has to do with her age.
Her car has no special modifications.
It could be a problem for you right after your medical procedure, mangeorge, because you haven’t really had time to adjust to the difference in depth perception, so hopping into your car upon leaving the hospital and roaring off might not be the safest thing.
But I believe once you adjust to having sight in only one eye, you’ll manage just fine, driving and otherwise.
Good luck, man.
** mangeorge**,
I hope your eye is ok.
I lost the vision in my right eye after being shot by a paintball when I was 18. I actually have some preheripherial(SP?) vision in the eye but my macula, which does fine focusing, is a lump of scar tissue. Anyway, for about the first year after the accident I could drive but I was pretty bad. It took that year for me to get used to my reduced vision. My brain finally compensated and I can drive, catch and do other eye-hand related tasks just fine now.
As far as the legal situation goes, out here in Nevada all you have to do is get a note from your doctor.
If you do lose your vision in your eye give yourself a lot of time to get used to the new condition.
Slee
My best friend’s father lost one of his eyes at like eighteen. He’s driven us all sorts of places, and regularly drives up twisty mountain roads at decent speeds.
My mother used to threaten me with the pronouncement that if I didn’t wear my glasses, my bad eye would get worse until I was blind in it and then I couldn’t get a driver’s license. It was a few years before I asked her “Really? Then how come R’s dad drives me home?”
Now THAT’s the name of my next album!!
From Sleestak:
Holy Crap! This exact same thing happened to me when I was 17, other than that an exact dupe.
Mangeorge, if you lose it, you’ll adjust. I hope you weren’t any good at ping pong, because that life is over. OTOH, I still think saying “I’ll keep my eye on it” is funny, ten years later.
I have a friend who I believe is legally blind in one eye (if not legally then horrible vision) and the other eye ain’t to great either. Pretty decent presciption and SHE’s color blind (which from what I understand is almost unheard of in females). Anyways she drives just fine. In fact you’d never know she had a problem if she didn’t tell you. (Except when she’s getting dressed and puts on things that really don’t match!)
I have very poor vision in one eye, so my depth perception sucks. I am always walking into furniture, and I can’t catch a ball. I had my permit once, but I’ve chosen not to drive. Perhaps it’s only my own insecurity; however, I feel as if we are all better off without me behind the wheel.
My brother has monocular vision - he’s been like that all his life. One eye is for near vision and the other for distance. He wears a contact lens in one eye, but if you didn’t notice that, you’d never know about his freak-like vision. 
Because this is the only way of seeing his brain knows, he’s been able to compensate just fine. Well, mostly just fine. I remember as a Little Leaguer, he caught several pop flies in the face because of the depth perception thing. Still, he participates in several sports, including golf, and he’s never had a problem driving, cars or golf balls.
I suffered a work mishap when I was much younger, and got a very small piece of metal in one eye. After getting the eye taken care of by an opthomologist, I had to wear an eye patch for about eight weeks, during which I had to drive. I found that, after a few days, I adjusted to the lack of binocular vision by using other cues to judge distance. It really wasn’t a big deal after a fairly short time (although I was happy to get the patch eventually taken off, I’d had enough pirate jokes).
My Mom got her license only being able to see out of one eye, however she never actually drove once she got her license. She just wanted it for an emergency.
Here in Sweden there’s no problem. I could easily get a license if I wanted to, which I don’t. However, if you would suddenly loose sight in one eye you would not be allowed to drive for a year until you had got used to the situation.