The Roads and Maritime Services NSW (RMS formerly the RTA) have a specific criteria for assessing our fitness to drive a car in NSW. A part of that criteria is a minimum vision standard to ensure we can see cars ahead of us, and a visual field standard to ensure we can safely see cars to our side using our peripheral (side) vision.
Custom Eyecare conducts driving vision tests for both vision and visual fields, as part of the RMS driver’s licence renewal form testing.
Binocular Visual Field Testing for driving vision
Our practice uses a Medmont automated perimeter to conduct our peripheral visual field examination. The actual testing strategy is called a Binocular driving test, which is different to the visual field tests you may have heard about for glaucoma patients. A driving binocular visual field test is done with both eyes together to simulate driving conditions and does go out to 80 degrees from fixation to the left and to the right, 50 degrees inferior and 40 degrees superior. This test is the same as the Esterman Visual Field test and effectively maps out your peripheral vision in a reliable way.
Historically, The RMS sent out a paper form for patients to have completed by an optometrist or ophthalmologist, as well as a section on their general health to be completed by their GP. In February 2021, Transport NSW began transferring to an online system and stopped sending RMS forms. Nowadays the RMS are asking optometrists to complete your paperwork via their online system called MyHealthLink. As we are effectively doing some of the work of the RMS office, it is possible some optometrists may charge a fee for this service. Custom Eyecare includes the submission of your RMS data as part of your consultation fee.
Below is an example of the peripheral visual field test that may be required by the RMS.
