Safety critical eyesight.

[BloominMan]

I've recently undergone laser surgery and have been told it is 3 months until reasonable discharge from the provider. Any complications show up within the first 3 months in 99% of cases allegedly.

I was also speaking to a member on here who has had laser done and now have a drivers job. They also had to wait 3 months, even though they were 20/20 unaided the next day.

I know Virgin don't allow it. I'm led to believe Northern have just started allowing laser, dependant on additional tests.

 

[BloominMan]

Out of interest what part of the prescription do you use to derive these figures, is it 'Sph' or 'Sph' + 'Cyl'? Academic for me as at nearly 60 I'm not planning to become a driver.

The requirements I believe are written for SPH solely.

CYL is astigmatism, I'd also be interested whether these are added together.

I know the laser companies add the SPH and half the CYL together for a spherical average.

 

[Optimum22]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I had my medical last Wednesday and spoke to them on Thursday. On Friday I received a email saying my offer has-been withdraw n but hopefully if I call tomorrow saying I'll be willing to have laser eye surgery I'll see what they say, perhaps they'll reconsider. It's with South Western Railway by the way.

 

[Stigy]

Thank you everyone for your replies. I had my medical last Wednesday and spoke to them on Thursday. On Friday I received a email saying my offer has-been withdraw n but hopefully if I call tomorrow saying I'll be willing to have laser eye surgery I'll see what they say, perhaps they'll reconsider. It's with South Western Railway by the way.

Did they reject you based on your prescription solely, and did they actually test your vision? The reason I ask is that there is a standard at which any prescription must fall within, but some TOCs don’t tend to bother so much with that and base your medical results on the sight test they carry out themselves (so basically your prescription may be too high technically, but your eyes meet the standard for corrected and uncorrected vision when then test you using the snellen scale or their equivalent).

GWR didn’t even mention my prescription or ask about it, but I took a printed copy with me just in case. My prescription would have been okay, but my eyesight uncorrected is pretty poor to say the least. I passed the eye test with no problems.

 

[Ducatist4]

Got to be worth asking though especially as they have already invested quite a bit of time in getting him this far in the process.

 

[Twotwo]

When I did the eye test unaided, I could only see about 2 or 3 lines at best and she said it was sufficient enough (bear in mind my prescription is about -2.5). Obv with the glasses was able to see pretty much to the last end.

 

[Stigy]

When I did the eye test unaided, I could only see about 2 or 3 lines at best and she said it was sufficient enough (bear in mind my prescription is about -2.5). Obv with the glasses was able to see pretty much to the last end.

I was the same, however my vision is about -5.75 in one eye and -4.75 in the other (as far as I remember). I was actually a bit surprised I was okay to be honest as I had issues with SWT albeit about 12 years previous (I was okay with them with new glasses, but they were umming and ahhh’ing at the time about my uncorrected vision).

 

[Optimum22]

Did they reject you based on your prescription solely, and did they actually test your vision? The reason I ask is that there is a standard at which any prescription must fall within, but some TOCs don’t tend to bother so much with that and base your medical results on the sight test they carry out themselves (so basically your prescription may be too high technically, but your eyes meet the standard for corrected and uncorrected vision when then test you using the snellen scale or their equivalent).

GWR didn’t even mention my prescription or ask about it, but I took a printed copy with me just in case. My prescription would have been okay, but my eyesight uncorrected is pretty poor to say the least. I passed the eye test with no problems.

They did test my eyesight, and my vision was a blur to be honest when trying to read any of the charts unaided without contacts or glasses.