Too Old To Drive?

I have varifocals… needed glasses since I was 16 (perfect eyesight until that point)

OH has needed reading glasses for only the last few years… an avid book reader, it was getting difficult for him to hold the book far enough away to focus … :wink: :wink:

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Even when he was well into his 70s, my father was too vain to wear his glasses outside of the house. We couldn’t figure out why he would keep getting lost driving back from my brother’s house until we realised the he couldn’t read the gantry signs on the motorway. He’s not allowed the car keys any more.

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There are biological reasons why we don’t always see what is there even when we are looking at it. At any risky junction the look and look again idea is a really good one.

‘ At any given moment, you are only seeing 10% of what you think you are seeing. That means the other 90% of what appears in your visual field is being “generated” by your brain. **Some of that infill is being drawn from memory, and some of it is being drawn from other sensory experiences.’
I always think that our vision is a bit like a photo that has been taken by a low resolution camera then enhanced with AI.
All motorcyclists will have heard of SMIDSY. Sorry Mate I Didn’t See You. Unfortunately from time drivers do pull out from junctions despite having looked carefully. Your eyes have missed the motorcycle and your brain has filled in where it should be with more road or hedge. The people who believe that loud exhausts save lives get some scientific support here.
I particularly like Ryan Fortnite’s take on the problem. He has another video on why Teslas run down motorcycles, their cameras use AI to fill in the gaps between pixels in the same way that our brains do for our eyes.

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I have also known a few people who have been amazed by what they saw when they eventually got glasses. They hadn’t lied when they said that they didn’t need glasses they just presumed that what they were seeing was normal.

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Although multiple studies have shown that inside a modern car almost all motorbike exhausts are pretty much inaudible unless you are so close that crash can no longer be avoided. There is something to be said for loud pipes helping pedestrians hear us coming, but equally a loud exhaust is pretty anti-social when driven through a village at night (I live in a village so I know!). My exhaust is Honda standard,.

A lot of the higher frequency sound(which humans rely on to judge direction) gets filtered
out, and the rumbly stuff (as with home cinema subwoofer bass) is non-directional as far as the human ear is concerned.

https://www.advrider.com/university-research-into-loud-pipes-myth/

A lot of people drive with cataracts too!

That’s a very good point SuePJ .

I do a lot of my riding through quiet villages and open countryside so I prefer to be as quiet as possible. It was nice out this afternoon.

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Maybe for a new wearer or new glasses but I have found I adapt the pupil position even with a slight head turn incredibly quickly to the point of not noticing except for dash board close ups that may require a moment more to get into focus but I dont adjust the radio whilst driving.
The close up portion is the smallest area on varifocals

I wear varifocals a lot of the time but always when driving. I find them brilliant, glance down to dash/satnav etc . Radio etc all controlled by steering wheel buttons or stalks, in both cars.

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Yep, stearing wheel buttons, my infotainment allows me to select radio or music which is stored on a pen drive or log into spotify which is what I meant by not doing those on the move as that requires the touch screen.