GEM Warns Drivers to Book Eye Test Before Autumn Evenings Get Darker

More than one in 10 drivers aged 81 to 90 failed a legal eyesight check in a recent UK roadside screening survey, and road safety charity GEM Motoring Assist is urging drivers of all ages to book an eye test before the clocks change and evening drives get darker.

The survey, which forms part of the Department for Transport’s ongoing consultation on older-driver eyesight testing, screened 3,010 drivers and riders stopped by police. Across the full group, 1.7% failed the test, but the failure rate jumped to 10.2% among drivers aged 81 to 90, who could not read a number plate at the legally required distance of 20 metres, roughly the length of two double-decker buses.

Why Autumn Makes Poor Eyesight More Dangerous

The timing is the whole point. Analysis of police collision data over the past six years shows an average of 278 more personal injury collisions in the two weeks after the autumn clock change than in the two weeks before it, with three quarters of the extra crashes happening in the afternoon once the clocks fall back and darkness arrives earlier. The AA has recorded an 11% rise in evening rush-hour crashes in the three weeks after the clock change compared with the three weeks before it, a pattern that has held every year from 2022 onward, and UK crash numbers overall run 23% higher in autumn than in summer.

Night driving accounts for only around a quarter to a third of all road travel in Britain, yet it’s linked to somewhere between 40% and 50% of fatal collisions, a gap that reflects how much harder it is to spot hazards, judge distance, and react in low light. James Luckhurst, head of road safety at GEM Motoring Assist, said drivers “need clear, reliable vision to spot a pedestrian in poor light, judge the speed of an approaching vehicle or read a direction sign in time to make a safe decision.”

GEM points to a specific combination of autumn conditions that makes clear vision harder to maintain: reduced daylight hours, low winter sun sitting at driver eye level, headlight glare from oncoming traffic, rain-smeared windscreens, and reflections thrown up from wet road surfaces. Any one of these is manageable on its own. Combined, and layered on top of vision that has quietly deteriorated over months or years, they can turn an ordinary commute into a genuine hazard.

The Legal Standard, and Why It’s Easy to Drift Below It

UK law requires every driver to read a number plate made after September 2001 from 20 metres away in good daylight, with glasses or contact lenses if needed, and to maintain a visual acuity of at least 6/12 on the Snellen scale. It’s not a one-off box to tick at test time. The legal duty applies every time a driver gets behind the wheel, which means a slow, gradual decline in vision, the kind that’s easy to adapt to without noticing, can leave a driver technically breaking the law without realising it.

Luckhurst said this gradual drift is exactly what makes eyesight different from other safety checks. “Eyesight changes often happen gradually, and it can be easy to assume that the difficulties of night driving, glare or reading signs are simply part of getting older,” he said. “This is why GEM is adamant that any changes in vision, however slight, should be taken seriously. A routine eye test is quick, simple and can make a real difference to safety and confidence on the road.”

The scale of the issue is growing alongside Britain’s ageing driving population. The number of full driving licence holders aged 70 and over in Great Britain has climbed past 6.3 million, an increase of 60% over the past 14 years, according to government figures. GEM builds the advice around vision rather than age on its own, noting that eyesight problems can affect drivers of any age and that the fix is the same regardless: a proper test, not guesswork.

Five Signs Worth Booking a Test Over

GEM lists five warning signs that should send a driver straight to the optician rather than waiting for their next routine check: struggling to read road signs or number plates until getting close to them, experiencing troubling glare from headlights, low sun, or wet roads, finding it harder to judge distance or gaps at junctions, feeling that night driving has become increasingly tiring or stressful, and noticing blurred, double, or patchy vision at any point.

Any one of those on its own is worth a same-week appointment with an optician. None of them require a driver to wait for a scheduled test or a birthday to act on. The eye test itself takes roughly 20 to 30 minutes at most opticians, and correcting a vision problem, whether through new glasses, an updated prescription, or treatment for an underlying condition, can happen just as quickly once it’s identified.

With the clocks set to fall back in late October, the window to get ahead of darker evenings is closing. GEM’s advice comes down to one point: don’t wait until a near-miss on a dark, rain-soaked road forces the issue.