Most part of population and of course of motorists, has problems of vision, such as astigmatism and myopia, however, one less common is the color blindness, for that, you might be wondering if color-blind people can drive. In today’s ride we will answer this question.
Before than anything, to answer this, is necessary to know the meaning of being color blind. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, color-blindness is a vision problem, in which colors aren’t perceived in a normal way. Generally, people that suffer this, can’t distinguish in the same way the red, green, yellow and blue color.
It is worth stressing that every color blindness can be different, it keeps as the most severe the one that doesn’t distinguish any color.
Can colorblind people drive?
Before this fact, and considering that universal colors of traffic lights are red, yellow and green, it might be the question about knowing if color-blind people can drive.
The answer is simple, but not as simple as it seems: yes, color-blind people can drive, and legally, it doesn’t exist any restriction against it, so, if you suffer this visual condition, don’t worry, there’s no obstacle to drive.
However, you must be more careful when doing it, due by the nature of the situation, exist conditions where can result harder to drive.
How a colorblind person can distinguish the colors of traffic lights?
Being color-blind it doesn’t mean you can’t see in an absolute way the red, green, yellow and blue colors, but, as we mentioned, perceive them differently. Depending on the conditions, can be seen in the following way:
- Protanopia: the red color is perceived as a dark beige that can be confused with green.
- Deuteranopia: is the most common type of color-blindness and doesn’t allow to identify the green color, it can be seen as brown or yellow color.
- Tritanopia: the blue color can be confused with green and yellow, it can be seen as red.
Now, in the case of traffic light, color-blind people don’t distinguish the real colors but can note the bright of lights every time these turn on.
Knowing this, the key is to learn and distinguish the order of lights in traffic lights. In almost all the word, traffic lights are in vertical way, having red light at the top, the yellow one at the center and, finally green on lower part; with that will be enough to memorize the order to know when to advance, reduce speed or stop when observing the corresponding beam.
The problem occurs when traffic lights don’t work, and the colors are placed in different way and flashing from one to another, as in horizontal way. In case of emergency, it can be observed the behavior of the other vehicles to know when to move forward or brake.
What happens with signs?
In the case of road signs, a standard and great advantage, is that pictograms must be universal. So, it doesn’t matter if a color-blind person doesn’t distinguish the background color of the sign (red, yellow, blue, orange), is enough with knowing the mean of the drawing to know what is announcing.
In this case, luminous signs can represent certain problem. However, most of these indications are accompanied by pictograms or even have shape as an arrow that indicates the direction of the road.
What is not recommendable is that a blind-color person uses shades or at least, ones that are not adequate for their situation.
In summary, color-blind people can drive without problem, only having the necessary precautions. Generally, this doesn’t represent any problem at the moment of driving, but in some way, drive carefully always.
How to know if I’m color-blind?
If you have the question about if you are or not colorblind… Perform the Ishihara test, that consists in the identification of numbers on the following circles:
