Bioptic driving: Historical milestones, current landscape, and future directions

A bioptic telescope is a small telescope mounted in the upper portion of a pair of eyeglasses that, when used for driving, allows a driver with central vision loss to briefly spot through the telescope to gain a magnified view of the roadway scene ahead. This paper summarizes the various ways bioptic driving has been studied, provides an update on bioptic driving research, and suggests future areas of work related to bioptic drivers. As the number of jurisdictions permitting bioptic driving increases, this review provides context regarding the history of bioptic driving, characteristics of bioptic drivers, and the safety of these drivers with vision impairment. Recent research has incorporated naturalistic recording methods that allow for study of specific safety events, the measurement of collision and near collision behavior on open roads, and adjustment for driving exposure in ways not previously possible. Still, studies of bioptic driving safety have been limited to North America, and small sample sizes and inadequate control groups remain challenges to interpretation, and more work should be done to determine what characteristics of bioptic drivers and other factors are related to safety. Suggestions for future research include study of the effects of newer advanced driver assistance systems on bioptic driving and development of evidence-based training programs.