Hearing Loss and transport

• Research regarding importance of auditory information in traffic situations is limited and not very up to date. Studies performed in several countries around 1980 state that hearing disorders or deafness should not be an exclusion criterion for driver’s license, since individuals with hearing loss are not considered as an increased risk to traffic safety. Research made tend to answer the question if road users with hearing loss pose a higher risk than road users with normal hearing. Possible risks which road users with a hearing disorder are exposed to have not yet been investigated. According to brief discussions with individuals with hearing loss, concerns include; signing while driving, trying to speech read passenger while driving, hearing emergency sirens, knowing the direction from which a sound is coming, hearing seatbelt warning or other warnings your car may give.Hearing loss is often age related. With longer life length and increasing transport habits of older people, the proportion of older road users (and road users with hearing loss) increase. Furthermore, support systems in cars tend to use auditory signals for warnings, which make them less accessible for users with hearing disorders. Other modalities for warning signals (light or vibration) could be a solution. Auditory information is an issue also for road users with normal hearing; cars tend to be more silent and could therefore be hard to notice for vulnerable road users, bicycle riders with music players more or less isolate themselves from surrounding impressions. This presentation invites to a discussion regarding traffic situations where auditory information is important and how support could be given if necessary.

Ämnesord

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

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