15th – 21st November is Road Safety Week, the UK’s biggest road safety event. The week raises awareness for keeping roads safe and encourages businesses and individuals to get involved with the campaign in any way they can.
Each year the event has a different theme and the theme for this year is Road Safety Heroes. These are the professionals who work on the roads helping to make them safer, reducing casualties and caring for those who have been involved with or affected by road accidents, including school crossing patrols, road designers, fire and rescue services, medical staff, other healthcare professionals and many more!
More than 1.3 million people die on roads every year, which can be preventable if we use and share roads safely. One of the most important ways to ensure you are keeping yourselves and others safe on the road is to make sure your vision meets the driving standards set by the DVLA by having regular eye examinations.
Regular eye examinations are encouraged to not only keep your prescription up to date for driving, but also to monitor the health of your eyes. At Bush Opticians we offer the OCT to our patients as part of your eye examination. OCT or Ocular Coherence Tomography takes non-invasive scans creating a detailed 3D view of the back of your eye. These scans allow our Optometrists to see your eye in incredible detail, detecting eye health concerns early and collecting data to monitor your eye health at subsequent eye examinations.
Unfortunately there are several eye conditions that can affect your vision, impacting your ability to drive safely. Glaucoma reduces your peripheral vision, whilst macular degeneration affects your middle vision, both of which are risks when driving. These are conditions are listed on the Government website and should be declared to the DVLA if both your eyes are affected.
If an up-to-date prescription is required it is important to update your glasses or contact lenses to ensure your vision is the best it can be. Our dispensing team will be able to help you select the best lenses and glasses to meet your needs for driving. As the weather is changing, the sun is lower in the sky which contributes to thousands of road accidents every year. One way to reduce glare affecting your vision when driving is with polarised sunglasses. The lens is designed specifically to reduce glare and are extremely helpful when driving in Winter and when road surfaces are shiny. We have a wide range of Maui Jim sunglasses available, which are some of the best polarised sunglasses available, and you can have polarised lenses put in many of our other frames.
Contact us today for more information about your vision and driving, or purchasing sunglasses ready for Winter.
