Driving one-eyed.

find a good optomerist to prescribe correct glasses, works for me, i wear gradual lenses now

Lionel, I have a mate who lost his eye when we were in our teens, he reckoned that it didn't take that long before his good eye started to compensate. Had depth of field issues at first but soon learnt to cope.

Sorry to hear about your eye problem. Not wishing to make matters worse for you, BUT, have you consulted with your GP or State Driving Licence Authority. If you continue to drive without a medical clearance you could find yourself in BIG trouble if you've been involved in or worse still caused an accident. Good luck with getting matters sorted.

Hi Lionel

I hope Duncan's advice holds true for you. As your condition is gradual and you have had no problems previously, you should adapt. Your experiment shows what a sudden change can do - compared with the gradual you have been suffering. Keep up the driving in all different places during this transition; may it work well for you.

My late father-in-law lost an eye as a youth and drove all his life in many different countries. He was also totally deaf, and even when he had a cataract on his one eye, he still drove. Mind you, the neighbours always new what day "Old Bill" went to town and were alert to keep out of his way.

One day he drove past a police random RBT stop - and the police chased this 'evading the breathaliser offender', sirens blaring and lights flashing all the way from town to his locality, when they were finally able to pass on the straight stretch and stop him. He quite innocently asked what they wanted adding "You'll have to write it down - i'm quite deaf you know". Everyone had a good laugh.

Motherhen

Hi Lionel, My dad lost almost all sight in one eye (accident) and had a lot of trouble adjusting (bad headaches) for many years. He often said that he wished that he had lost all of his sight in the crook eye. Over the years I have heard from other people who say that they adjusted to having one eye ok. I suspect that if your situation becomes very difficult you may be better to cover the bad eye.

All the best mate, KK

Hi Lionel,
Over time you will adjust to having less sight in that eye and as you said "made me a lot more aware though' your senses will pick up where you have lost the use of that eye. You will learn, without noticing it to carry on, frustrating to begin with, but over time it will become normal.
The same as when people go completely blind, their hearing and touch become more sensitive to the world around them. Obviously they can't drive, but there shouldn't be any reason why you can't continue to drive if your doctor is satisfied with the vision you have in your good eye and he can give you written permission to drive.
Legally blind people are still allowed to drive.
How do I know this?, I hate it when someone parks in a disable spot, and they walk away from the car with no obvious signs of a disability. I asked a bloke one day about why he parked in the disable park, when to me he didn't have a mobility problem. He told me he was Legally blind.
Anyway Lionel, I hope it all works out well.

Hi Lionell,
I know exactly how you feel.
Lost the sight in my right eye about 20 years ago and my first experience driving was terrifying. After turning 2 corners and did a U turn and went home wondering how I would ever drive safely and competently again.

I have to say that for the 1st year I had trouble with judging distance with driving and simple things like putting a screwdriver into the head of a screw at arms length and things like that.

By the end of the 2nd year my brain had worked it all out and I could again swing the bullbar around to within 1" of a tree and know exactly where it was.

Your remaining eye will get very strong and your brain will work out the depth of vision and you will drive with your head slightly turned to compensate for your loss of field of vision.

The only time I find it that I even notice the loss now is if I am very tired then my brain has difficulty switching off the signal from the blind eye.

Give yourself time to work it out and as your loss is gradual, I imagine your brain will have more time to adjust and you may not experience the sudden change as you did today when driving with one eye closed.

You'll be right mate!


Brett

some people call me.....
the one eyed flying purple people eater
or
Cyclops
and some others call me sponge but sponge has nothing to do with being blind in one eye ...that's another story...

Been this way for some 40 yrs...and yes you will get used to it

its because you dont have depth of vision...learn trying to catching a moving ball by tossing it at the ground rebounding off the wall.....it will soon teach you how you can adjust your brain to guess and I mean GUESS distances...you can get very good at it

the loss of your periphial (side) vision is the hardest to adjust to...it means remembering to turn head before you move off so that you dont walk into the door, wall, someone else etc etc

look at this way ...you can only get piiiiissed in eye

and keep your other eye healthy...wear glasses, even if they are not used for reading etc...they will act as a safety barrier for your GOOD eye

Our 30 year old son was born with a detached retina, so only has 1 eye, we didnt know until he was 13, too late to do anything then.
He drives well, backs trailers, plays cricket well, etc etc etc
Only thing he cant do well is drill a straight hole haahah, and line things up.
think you will get used to it in time.

Pesty

Hi Lionel,
like others have said you learn to adjust, though i seemed to have done it quicker then the one year others have mentioned. i have lost all sight in my left eye (due to a cyst and many operations) and whilst judging distance early on was very hard, you do get much better at it, after about 2 months i reckon i had gotten the hang of it, half that time was laided up in bed recovering from operation though.
what i have noticed is because you loose that periferal (sp?) vision from the side you loose eye sight from, you need to compensate for it. what i mean is when i come to say a T intersection, i now need to turn my head all the way around to the left alot further then i used to have to, just to make sure nothing is coming, no having a quick look and go, i now need to have a check and then really double check more then i used to. i will confess that early on i did have 2 near misses when i pulled out onto streets thinking the road was clear but actually wasn't, i quickly realised i needed to turn my head around to the left alot more then what i used to doing previously.

I have been blind in one eye from Toxoplasmosis from birth.

I have peripheral vision but no focussing spot.

IMHO the biggest problem for me and will be for you is close distances .

The hardest thing for me to do is fill a wine glass, and I worked out a trick of tapping the glass with the bottle first.

I still have problems knowing how far my car is from that pillar in a carpark.

BUT as far as driving is concerned over about 6 metres I am told the brain uses size as distance reference, rather than binocular variation. I have no problem and have never had an accident caused by faulty distance perception.

You may or may not be pleased to know that you should be able to resume tennis once you are used to it, but I find golf too much of a challenge.
Regards Philip A

Gooday Lionel and I lost most of the vision in one of my eyes through an accident in the early '70's. Initially it was a bit of a problem judging distances as we are used to being binocular but I found it was easier to wear an eye patch as this totally blocked what little (and distracting) vision I had and did this for around 6 months. With time I totally adjusted to only having the use of one eye and drove like that until a couple of years ago when science and technology allowed the eye to be repaired. You will adjust to your situation with time and I doubt that you will have any difficulty as you have not lost your sight as yet and as it fades you will naturally compensate with the other eye. I seemed to unconsciously develop a technique of turning my head to the side with less vision and you do not lose 50% of your peripheral vision when you lose sight in one eye but only about 15%. I don't know what your regulations are in the west but I had an endorsement on my licence in Victoria and here in Qld. You will be O.K mate and just keep on doing what you enjoy.
Regards.

Hmm, tips...just do it...dont stop doing anything and you will adjust.

I found that all the retinal specialists said my depth perception will return after about a year but I am only legally blind in the right eye and not totally. So I dont believe my brain adjusted the way it would have if I lost the vision totally.

The adjustments I have made are physical and not subconsciously. I initially knocked wine glasses over all the time and it took about 4 goes to grab the door handle on the car. Fine movements were the most obvious...the large ones...like driving parking and playing sport were not as detrimental.

I have found I just relied more on touch and very conscious of my hand movements, ie rather than trying to just dash in and lift a glass...its more close the distance and then glide in till you touch and then lift normally. It does get to be unnoticeable to others after a time.

Parking was ok...but I ALWAYS parked too far away and have not found the opposite. ie I would swear I was inches away from the car in front but after alighting...it was more like feet.

Night driving is a pain and I find Im tired faster than previously, the glare you get from lights is 10 times worse due to the blurred vision in the right eye. Times like this it would be better off with zero vision in that eye but I will live with it. Additionally the illegal HID conversions for lowbeam are downright blinding...the lower intensity of halogens even when adjusted incorrectly are bearable but HIDs....are just thoughtless and irresponsible.

My periphial is effected as you know...the nose tends to cut off your good vision to the right and I use my mirrors and swivel my head like a demon...but that is just good practice for anyone. The worst is shopping centres when people just expect you have seen them approaching and a few get cleaned up due to them jumping out infront of my right shoulder. I just put the wife on my right and she loves holding my hand anyway.

From every state I have had a license in QLD NSW and WA they dont make any direct statements in their respective handbooks but when you enquire the response for light/non-commercial driving it is the minimum sight in at least one eye. Im sure that changes when you drive HR HC MC etc.

Goodluck mate and I hope it all works out well, just remember....look after your good eye!!

Matt.

Thanks eveyrone,

Not the end of the world then.
Will cancel my order with Garmin for a Brail loaded GPS.....lol.


Cheers......Lionel.

ever chased those dragon lizards around that live on granite outcrops?

notice they sit there watching you and bobbing there heads furiosly?

thats to give them depth perception to judge if your sneaking up on them with only one eye on each side of their head

- worth a thought perhaps