Major driving changes could ban just one pint and bring forced eye tests - The Mirror

A new road safety strategy - which is billed as the biggest shake up in decades - includes plans to lower the drink-driving limit and introduce stricter seatbelt penalties

Older drivers will be required to do regular eye tests under a major new road safety crackdown.

Over-70s will need to get their vision checked every three years, ending a system of self-reporting which has been criticised by coroners.

The move will be part of a new road safety strategy - billed as the biggest shake up in decades - which includes proposals to lower the drink-driving limit in England in line with Scotland, and handing out penalty points to people for not wearing seatbelts.

Officials are also considering cognitive tests for older drivers but the plans are not in the consultation, as more work needs to be done to establish what kind of tests could be used.

The UK is one of the only European countries that relies on people self-reporting health conditions to its driving authority, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). A coroner’s report from last year warned that there had been a 70% “collapse of drivers self-reporting the four major conditions of diabetic retinopathy, cataracts, glaucoma and macular degeneration” between 2019 and 2023.

Officials hope that mandatory eye tests will boost the road safety of older drivers without unnecessarily restricting their mobility and personal freedom.

Edmund King, AA president, welcomed the plans, saying: "It is important that the Road Safety Review covers eyesight tests. A move to make eye tests for older drivers mandatory is obviously welcome, especially as the likelihood of crashes increases once someone is over the age of 70 and markedly shoots up over the age of 80 to a peak at age 86, with eyesight often a worrying factor.

"Eye tests are free for people over the age of 60 anyway and healthcare professionals advise them every two years given they can help with diagnosis of other underlying conditions.”

Elsewhere in the strategy, which will be published tomorrow, the drink-drive limit in England and Wales is expected to be reduced from 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath to 22 micrograms - the current level for Scotland. Just one pint could push people over the limit.

Plans have also explored allowing police to rely on saliva tests instead of blood tests to check for drug-driving to make it easier to bring prosecutions. Fines for uninsured drivers will also be doubled.

Elsewhere, the Government is not expected to introduce limits on new drivers under the age of 21 transporting peer-age passengers for six months after passing their test, despite calls from road safety experts.

On Britain's roads in 2024, 1,633 people were killed and almost 28,000 seriously injured in traffic incidents, and numbers have remained relatively constant following a large fall between 2000 and 2010.

Meanwhile, the number of people killed in drink-driving incidents has risen over the past decade, reaching a 13-year high in 2022 and prompting concern that existing road safety measures are no longer working.

The strategy aims to reduce deaths and serious injuries on Britain's roads by 65% by 2035, and by 70% for children under 16. About 24% of all car drivers killed in 2024 were 70 or older, and 12% of all casualties in car collisions involved older drivers.

Last summer, speaking about the road strategy plans, a Labour source said: "At the end of the last Labour government, the number of people killed and seriously injured on our roads was at a record low, but numbers have remained stubbornly high under successive Conservative governments.

“In no other circumstance would we accept 1,600 people dying, with thousands more seriously injured, costing the NHS more than £2billion per year."