• DOI:10.1111/cxo.12396
• Corpus ID: 26368283

Colour blindness and driving

@article{Cole2016ColourBA,
  title={Colour blindness and driving},
  author={Barry L. Cole},
  journal={Clinical and Experimental Optometry},
  year={2016},
  volume={99},
  pages={484 - 487}
}

• B. Cole
• Published 1 September 2016
• Environmental Science
• Clinical and Experimental Optometry

Road traffic signals use a red, green and yellow colour code and we know that persons with abnormal colour vision can confuse these colours.Motor vehicle tail and brake lights are red, the colour that connotes danger and we know that those with a protan colour vision deficiency have a significantly lower than normal sensitivity to red light. They will have a reduced visual range for red traffic signals, tail lights and brake lights and may also fail to see lower-intensity red retro-reflectors that mark out an otherwise unlit parked vehicle. Australian optometry recognised the issue of vision and road safety very early in the piece. Tasmanian optometrist, R. Stewart Padman, published a forthright and wellargued paper on the need for vision standards for drivers in the Commonwealth Optometrist in 1924. He alluded to the need for drivers to have ‘a normal ability to recognise the primary colours, particularly distinguishing red fromgreen’. In 1924, there were only 99,000 registered motor vehicles and 37,000motorcycles in Australia for a population of 5.7million. This was onemotorised vehicle for every 40 people. The first traffic lights had not yet been installed: the first were installed in 1928 on the corner of Collins and Swanston Streets in Melbourne. Stewart Padman was ahead of his time. Nearly 50 years later, in 1970, I argued that there should be a colour vision standard for drivers of motor vehicles or at least for drivers of large commercial vehicles but I also advocated that there could be improvements to road and vehicle signal lights tomake them more recognisable for drivers with a colour vision deficiency.