Older people's driving habits, visual abilities, and subjective assessment of daily visual functioning

To explore the relationship between the status of daily visual functions, as measured by Mangione et al.'s (1992) ADVS, and: (a) visual functions that are related to driving; (b) the tendency of elderly people to drive in different visual conditions; and (c) the reasons older people give for limiting their driving under different conditions.

The subjects were 80 elderly people, ages 64-85. Seventy three of these people still drove and seven had quit driving. Each participant was individually administered (a) a subjective questionnaire containing the ADVS and questions from the Established Populations for the Epidemiological Studies of the Elderly (EPESE); (b) objective measures of visual performance including visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, and visual search speed.

Strong correlations were obtained between the responses to the subjective questionnaire and the objective measures of visual skills. Most subjects were cognizant of the changes in their quality of vision and changed their driving habits accordingly by avoiding driving at dark, on unfamiliar roads, and on long trips. There were also significant associations between the changes in driving behavior and performance on the vision tests.

The ADVS can be used as a self-administered test of driving-related visual functioning, and is most relevant to self-restrictions in night driving.