What Is the Legal Distance for Reading a Car Number Plate

Cycling has always been popular in the UK and 2020 was a record year for bike sales. Obviously, some users with more „bikes” on the road turn out to be dangerous. Governments are considering implementing a registration system, which in turn must display actual license plates. Key outcome measures The ability to read three different licence plates under standard DVLA driving test conditions (i.e., at 20.5 âm in broad daylight with glasses if worn) and the ability to read identical licence plates on a white and yellow background. In the UK, the legal standard of vision for driving is the ability to read a licence plate in daylight with glasses, if worn, at a legal distance. In practice, this means a license plate with letters 31/8 mm (79 mm) high at a distance of 67 ° ft (20.5 in); However, this is often an arbitrary distance determined subjectively by the examiner. In a recent survey conducted by the DVLA, not even 50% of motorists know that they should be able to read a license plate from 50 meters away. Less than half of the motorists surveyed by the DVLA know that they must be able to read a license plate from 20 meters away to drive safely. If you still have a problem, the examiner will then measure the exact distance and check your ability to read a third license plate. If you cannot read this third plate correctly, you will not pass your driving test and the test will not continue. If you cannot read the licence plate, the examiner will ask you to read a second licence plate and, if necessary, bring you one step closer to the required distance. The current test protocol used to obtain a driver`s licence and, in addition, the test that police will perform to assess vision while driving are highly variable and are unlikely to provide consistent reproducible results.

The performance of people with equally good visual acuity is unpredictable and highly dependent on the license plate they are supposed to read. This variability could exclude some who would otherwise pass the test or a person with visual acuity below accepted standards. The forthcoming change in the rules on the design of registration plates is an ideal opportunity to standardise the entire driving acuity test procedure. This value of 6/15 is a standard of static visual acuity lower than that stated by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists of about 6/10. In our study, of the seven subjects who could not read any of the license plates at 20.5 âm, six (85.7%) had a static visual acuity of 6/12. This confirms the level of 6/10 chosen by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists for an approximate level of static visual acuity. „In the Motor Vehicle (Driver`s Licence) Regulations, 1937, the required distance was 25 yards or 75 feet. In 1971, the distance was changed to 67 feet (20.5 meters) to accommodate a change in license plate size. The police vision test on the side of the road is the same as the vision test at the beginning of a practical driving test, as the driver is asked to read a license plate 20 meters away.

If you have trouble reading license plates at this distance and they seem a little blurry, you`ll almost certainly need glasses or contact lenses to drive. There is a significant difference between the ease with which three different license plates can be read depending on the composition of the letters and numbers, although this does not seem to be significantly influenced by whether they were printed on a yellow or white background. Only 92.3% of subjects could read all license plates at legal distance, 96.7% could read at least one license plate at legal distance and 3.3% of subjects could not read any license plates at 20.5 years. And that`s more than 15 feet closer — a car length — than when the eye test was introduced in 1937 at a distance of 75 feet (23 m). Drasdo N, Haggerty CM. A comparison of UK licence plate and Snellen vision tests for motorists. Brochure LF 676. Transport and Road Research Laboratory, Crowthorne, Berkshire, 1977. To do this, you read an old-fashioned license plate at a minimum distance of 20.5 meters (about 67 feet or 5 car lengths). If you are reading a new license plate (these letters are narrower), you must be able to read it at a minimum distance of 20 meters (about 66 feet). How rude. In this article, CarReg has listed some of the coarsest licence plates in the UK.

Some were banned by the British government agency (the DVLA) because they were too offensive! The rules of conduct stipulate: „Drivers must be able to drive a license plate issued after 1 September 2001 at a distance of 20 metres (if applicable). with glasses or contact lenses). Of the 1,623 drivers who participated in the DVLA survey, 744 (48.5%) knew they had to read a license plate 20 metres away, 454 said it was 25 metres, 322 thought it was 15 metres and 103 had no idea. You must inform DVLA of any conditions that may affect your driving. Kiel, A., Butler, T. & Alwitry, A. Visual acuity and legal requirement of sight to drive a private car. Eye 17, 579-582 (2003). doi.org/10.1038/sj.eye.6700441 Three different license plates were used for the study. They were stratified according to levels of difficulty, according to their numerical and alphabetical composition. The choice of characters to use on each license plate was based on McMonnies` work.1 He found that when reading a visual acuity chart, some letters and numbers were easier to recognize than others, and classified them accordingly.

From its ranking, we built three license plates. We used letters and numbers considered easy to recognize to form the single license plate (T174ILE), moderately difficult characters for the second license plate (P610VOH) and for the difficult license plate (M528CBY), we used letters and numbers considered the most difficult to identify. The College of Optometrists recommends that people over the age of 16 have an eye test every two years or more frequently if they have eye problems. Another way to check your eyesight solely for driving purposes is to try the police driving test yourself. While a measuring tool is obviously the most accurate way to determine distance, the DVLA still recommends using a series of five parked cars or eight parking spaces as an alternative „easy way to measure distance.” Police can and will require drivers who stopped them to have an on-site eye exam to prove they can read a licence plate from 20 metres away if they are concerned about their vision. If a driver is unable to pass this test, they will be advised that it would be a criminal offence to get back behind the wheel because they have not met the legal standard of vision. Friedman`s test showed a significant difference between the legibility of the three plates (Ï2=287.322, df=2, P<0.001). This led to the rejection of the null hypothesis, which states that license plates are equally legible. Being able to see the road clearly is, of course, an extremely important part of driving, but what rules apply to driver vision in the UK? It has been shown that the ability to read the licence plate does not depend on the background colour if the licence plate is clean.

In the second part of the study, the ease of reading the license plate on a white background was compared to reading on a yellow background. The results were analysed with an Ï2 (Ï2=0.476, df=1, asymp. sig. 0.490). The license plate test is quick and easy to perform yourself. The DVLA says 20 meters is about the width of eight parking spaces, or five car lengths. That`s 8 feet 2 inches closer than the current minimum distance for the „license plate test” of 65 feet 7 inches (20 m). Whatever type of personalized license plate you want, browse the millions of custom license plates available at CarReg now. In the first part of the study, all three license plates were ranked in the order of their first reading and these results were statistically analyzed using the Friedman test. This tests the null hypothesis that the variables related to k come from the same population. If you have difficulty with spoken English, you are allowed to write what you see. In the second part, the null hypothesis was proposed that there is no difference between reading a licence plate on a white background and a yellow background.

These results were then analysed using the Ï2 test. Anyone can take the test at any time. Twenty meters is usually as long as five cars parked next to each other – you can test for yourself if you can clearly read a license plate of the farthest car. In broad daylight, you must be able to read a license plate from a distance of 20 meters (or at a distance of 20.5 meters for old license plates). Only 92.3% (194) of participants could read all license plates at legal distance and 96.7% (203) could read at least one of the three license plates at legal distance.