Investigation of the Effect of Colorblindness in Road Traffic Accidents

Generally driver, vehicle and road are three important factors of accidents causes. Driver’s physical health should be considered because 5.according to the statistics drivers are ninety percent of accidents reason. Vision is one of the senses which is absolutely necessary for safe driving. This study was aimed to investigate the effect of colorblindness in Road Traffic Accidents.
This cross-sectional study was done in 2012-2015 on 2089 drivers selected from center of occupational medicine “Arta salamat Ardabil”. Sample comprised 65 patients with colorblind and 130 control subjects with normal vision. Driver’s accidents were reported by police over the 5 past years. Studied samples were interred with informed consent in the study. Independent samples T- test was used to analysis of data.
Among 2089 cases, 65 drivers (3.1%) were identified with impaired color vision. Types of color blindness were respectively green color blindness (67.69%), red-green colorblindness (23.07%), red colorblindness (7.69%) and total colorblindness (1.55%). The mean age of colorblind drivers was 45.27 years with standard deviation of 11.027 and mean age of normal vision subjects was 42.67 years with standard deviation of 9.354. During the 5-year period 7 (10.7%) of colorblind drivers and 26 (20%) of control subjects were involved in any motor vehicle accidents.
Drivers who have disorder in eyesight are more involved in traffic accidents in comparison with normal drivers. Paying more attention to identify these drivers such as colorblind during the certification driving licenses can be helpful to decrease traffic accidents.