Vision test clears thousands of 'failed' drivers

By JASON COLLIE transport reporter

More than 36,000 people failed the new driver's licence eye test before being cleared by their optometrists.

The failure rate of the eye screening machine was an early controversy in the whole photo-licence scheme and yesterday, after the 14-month upgrade period finished, the Land Transport Safety Authority revealed that 64,695 were sent back to their optometrists.

Of those, fewer than half - 28,282 - needed corrective lenses, while 36,413 motorists were cleared after paying up to $80 for an optometrist's test.

An authority spokesman, Craig Dowling, said the rate was acceptable because of the number of drivers with defective eyesight who were detected.

But the figures led Labour MP Harry Duynhoven to renew his call last year - when he was the party's transport spokesman - that the authority should pick up the bill for anyone who did not need glasses.

"I still think the principle is not an unfair one, but that's one for the minister's [Mark Gosche's] call," he said.

"The idea of the machines was as a screen to try and check for those who had a problem, [but] I don't think it's a good result in terms of these false negatives," he said.

"It would be good to get a machine which more closely approximated the eye test condition."

The figures - which are provisional and also showed 2,457,506 photo licences have been issued since May 1999 - were released a few days after Mr Gosche announced a review of how the licensing regime is run and the effect of it on novice, elderly and commercial drivers.

Mr Dowling said the machine had proved to be the most effective way of screening a motorist's eyesight.

"We are happy with the numbers that were picked up through it," he said.

"The options were letting these people drive with their eyesight at a dangerous level or implementing a more rigorous test."

The president of the Optometrists Association, Jack Crawford, defended the authority's machine, saying it was intended only as a screening device and not a definitive eye test.

The first legal challenge to the validity of the new driver licensing rule and photo-identification licences has failed.

Lois McInnes of Naenae had challenged the validity of photo licences, claiming the rule overrode the rights of holders of "lifetime licences."

Justice McGechan in the High Court at Wellington said the fact a person held a licence could not affect Parliament's power to change that, and there was no general right to be heard, let alone consulted before a change.

But he criticised the restricted consultation on the new regime.