Association between Visual Acuity and Road Accidents among Heavy Vehicle Drivers in Tehran, Iran (2019)

Background: Poor vision in drivers may represent an important cause of risk for car accidents.The purpose of this study was to analyze the Association between visual acuity in heavy vehicle drivers and the occurrence of road accidents.Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out on 200 drivers of heavy motor vehicles (trunks) in Tehran province in 2019.Data were gathered using a checklist of demographic and background features, a standardized driver safety questionnaire, and drivers' driving records obtained from occupational health centers.In addition, drivers' visual acuity status was assessed using Snellen chart.Descriptive statistics, Spearman's correlation, and Chi-square were utilized to analyze the data using SPSS version 21 and Microsoft Excel 2016.Results: Visual acuity scores for the right and left eyes were 9.16 1.04 and 9.20 1.08, respectively.All drivers with no prior experience with crashes on roads had normal vision acuity.The visual acuity scores in both eyes were not related to occurrence of accidents or near miss accidents (P>0.05), while drivers who had higher visual acuity score experienced fewer numbers of near miss accidents and accidents (p<0.001).The most common accidents involved collisions between vehicles (60%), which had negative correlations with the right visual acuity (p<0.001,r = -0.24)and the left one (p<0.05,r = -0.21). Conclusion:There was a high rate of road accidents among the studied heavy vehicle drivers.Also, impaired visual acuity can contribute to high accident and near miss rates among drivers.