{"id":5171,"date":"2011-02-28T10:13:30","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T10:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=5171"},"modified":"2023-02-02T02:53:02","modified_gmt":"2023-02-02T02:53:02","slug":"macular-degeneration-and-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=5171","title":{"rendered":"Macular Degeneration And Driving"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>As I&#8217;ve mentioned elsewhere, my dad has macular degeneration (MD). He&#8217;s over 80. And before he finally admitted he couldn&#8217;t see well enough to drive (he can&#8217;t tell the difference between a pigeon and a pheasant 30 metres away) I had to threaten to report him to police if he even tried to drive &#8211; as he was planning a 400 mile round trip!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I noticed <a href=\"http:\/\/napavalleyregister.com\/news\/local\/article_5f34aca2-430c-11e0-b582-001cc4c03286.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this story in the Napa Valley Register<\/a>, which includes a local man suffering from the condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nhs.uk\/conditions\/macular-degeneration\/Pages\/Introduction.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NHS gives a useful explanation<\/a> of the problem:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Macular degeneration&nbsp;is a painless eye condition that leads to the gradual loss of central vision (the ability to see what is directly in front of you). Central vision is used while:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>reading<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>writing<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>driving<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Macular degeneration occurs when the macula (the part of the eye that is responsible for central vision) is unable to function as effectively as it used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Macular degeneration does not affect the peripheral vision, which means that the condition will not cause complete blindness. The peripheral vision, sometimes known as &#8220;side vision&#8221;, is the outer vision.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>This sums up my dad&#8217;s condition perfectly. It is also worth pointing out that one form of it is progressive &#8211; it gets worse as you get older. And it affects about a third of the over-75s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The guy in the Napa story is 85 and has diagnosed MD. That&#8217;s important: HE HAS MD . As a result he was required to take a driving test to assess his ability to drive, and he failed. He believes he was failed unfairly and was discriminated against based on age. In his own words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>They\u2019re thinking it\u2019s an age problem and eye problem.&nbsp;I don\u2019t think it\u2019s so much of an eye problem as an age problem.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes, words almost fail you. He can&#8217;t see what is directly in front of him &#8211; and it will get worse &#8211; and he claims he doesn&#8217;t have an eye problem! He claims age discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just remember that Napa is in California. Birthplace (allegedly)&nbsp;of such concepts as suing people for serving you hot coffee, suing software companies for packing disks in &#8220;too large&#8221; boxes, suing Disneyland staff for taking their masks off, and so on. This is where lawsuits of the future come from. Allegedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People with MD shouldn&#8217;t drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <script data-jetpack-boost=\"ignore\" async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-4532794719633406\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;ve mentioned elsewhere, my dad has macular degeneration (MD). He&#8217;s over 80. And before he finally admitted he couldn&#8217;t see well enough to drive (he can&#8217;t tell the difference between a pigeon and a pheasant 30 metres away) I had to threaten to report him to police if he even tried to drive &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-world-related"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}