Can You Get A Driver's License If You Are Color Blind?

by Jim on October 25, 2022

Although having good vision is necessary for safe driving, color blindness will not disqualify you from getting a driver’s license. Eye problems can only limit you from getting a license if you fail the eye exams required to get your driver’s license.

Interestingly, stoplights are arranged in the same order worldwide for this particular reason. The top light is red, yellow is at the middle, and green is at the bottom. These lights are arranged to enable colorblind individuals to know when to stop, go, or slow down.

What is color blindness?

Color blindness is an X-linked recessive inherited genetic condition. It is prevalent in about 5 percent of the population. It occurs mainly in males and is rare among females. This condition is maternally inherited and commonly seen in the male family line.

Color blindness doesn’t mean a total loss of vision; instead, it refers to a problem with seeing colors. The problem is usually part of a spectrum from high to low. It’s almost impossible for someone to see the external world in black and white, as it were.

John Dalton, a Physicist, and English chemist, first described the condition in 1798. He discovered he had color blindness, so the condition was called daltonism for some time. Today, it is only known as deuteranopia, a kind of color blindness.

The simple idea behind color blindness is that the genes coding color reception for the retinal cones are faulty. The three primary colors (red, blue, and green) are the color types that the retinal cones usually match. When any of these types become deficient, it leads to one of the 3 kinds of color blindness:

Protanomaly
Deuteranomaly
Tritanomaly

Yes, it is legal to drive with color blindness in every state in the United States. For example, in California, even the most severe form of color blindness is not seen as a vision problem that requires particular intervention by testing or licensing authorities. Drivers are expected to learn how to identify signals and signs based on location or shape; otherwise, they won’t be able to pass the driving test.

Massachusetts is the only state in the US that explicitly outlines a color vision in its licensing requirements. According to the requirement, drivers must be able to distinguish the red, green, and amber colors. That doesn’t mean that all drivers must have a perfect color vision; instead, drivers must be able to memorize the order or signal lights to compensate for their lack of color vision.

Roughly 8% of men are red-green color blind. It’s normal for color-blind people to drive in the United States. So, if all those men were prohibited from driving, it would mean that millions of people won’t have access to transportation.

These drivers follow the same traffic signs as everyone else driving on the roads. They must know the road signs and traffic light shape and position.

Is color blindness considered a disability?

Color Blindness, although considered a minor disability, about 8-10% of all men suffer some form of color blindness, so this audience is widespread. People with color blindness find it challenging to differentiate between certain colors, primarily red versus green.

What should you do if you have color blindness?

You can’t do much about color blindness as you are born with it. Colour blindness is usually partial and limited to the inability to distinguish between a few colors. This condition won’t affect your quality of life unless you allow it.

Most types of color vision problems do not have any treatments unless the color vision problem is linked to the use of certain medications or eye conditions. Stopping the medication responsible for your vision problem or addressing the underlying disease may improve color vision.

Using a colored contact lens may improve your ability to distinguish between confusing colors. However, such lenses won’t enhance your ability to see all colors.

Is it possible to pass a color blindness test?

If red, green, and amber colors are displayed before you, and you can identify each of them, you’ve passed the test. Most medical personnel will use dots with a number within, but they can still bring circles with red, green, and amber colors, too, for you to distinguish.

Sadly, medical examiners have different methods of testing color blindness for driving and, most times, use tools that make it impossible to know if the driver can see the colors on traffic devices and signals. Many make use of apparatus like the Ishihara color blind test. This test is a small booklet that has many test plates with dots and circles appearing randomly in size and color. Within the dots are the varying color numbers.

If you can read the numbers, you do not possess the variation of color blindness. If you cannot read the numbers, you’re color blind. This testing method has one issue: it poses difficulty for drivers who can differentiate colors but probably have a red-green deficiency. Therefore, it is designed to make it impossible for even minor deficiencies.

Another problem that can present itself can be the use of the colors on the Snellen Eye Chart. This test represents the driver’s ability to see specific colors associated with a traffic signal, but it also has its issues. The problem is that it is straightforward to memorize these colors as there is not much variation between different charts. Therefore it makes it too easy for the driver and does not truly test their ability to recognize these colors.

A common question that drivers and medical examiners always ask is whether the driver can recognize the color position on the traffic light and identify yield and stop signs as evidence that they can distinguish color. Unfortunately, the answer to this question is an absolute no.

Whether you believe it or not, several traffic signals are old or relate to traditions, for instance, those that have traffic signals arranged in the reverse form. Such can be found in some communities in Upstate New York. One, in particular, has a traffic signal with green on top, which is there because the neighborhood is "Irish." This arrangement would pose a problem for any driver using the ability to see light positions Vs. the actual color.

Final thoughts

Colour Blindness, although a vision impairment, cannot prevent anyone from getting a driver’s license. What’s important is to be able to pass the necessary driving test to prove one’s ability to identify traffic signs and signals.