Protan colour vision deficiency and road accidents

Background: Protans are precluded from holding a commercial driver's licence in Australia because they have a substantially reduced ability to see red lights and have more road accidents involving signal lights. This exclusion has been in place since 1994 but is likely to be abandoned following a current review of medical standards for commercial drivers. This paper reviews the level of risk of road accidents due to protan colour vision deficiency. It also addresses the question of whether it is fair to regard all protans as having a higher risk of road accident because some protans might have a sensitivity to red light that is as good as that of some people with normal colour vision.

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