Hearing loss can heavily impact you or your loved ones’ life. Whether it is simply replying to a question in close proximity, conversing in a group of people at a social event or even at work in a professional environment, hearing plays a vital role in your day-to-day life.
When it comes to driving, that’s a different story. Typically, you’d expect someone who is deaf or has severe hearing loss is not able to drive. According to Deafness Forum, hearing loss, if mild or moderate, doesn’t have a huge impact on your driving ability. People generally take more caution and rely on their other senses to be alert and be able to drive at the same ability as other drivers, however, it is recommended that hearing aids are always worn to improve the conditions for the driver. It is mentioned that there might be difficult for people with hearing loss to hear certain sirens and alerts such as for railway crossings.
If you need to drive for work, it is known that to be able to drive with an unconditional commercial licence, the person must be able to hear equal to or lower than 40db without any assistance from hearing aids.
A conditional licence might be allowed if the person they meet certain requirements like getting approval from an audiologist, passing a practical assessment or even the nature of the job that requires the driving.
However, if you are driving for personal reasons, driving with hearing loss or being deaf is not illegal. There are various steps you can to do improve your driving ability if you do have severe hearing loss. These include
- Having your vision checked by an audiologist at a qualified clinic
- Use wide-angled mirrors to increase the range of your vision so you can see more while you drive
- Minimise the amount of noise so that you can focus on driving with your other senses. This includes keeping the windows closed and radio off so the vibrations from the wind or music aren’t interfering with your driving.
- Take advantage of in-car technology
If you want to make an appointment to get your hearing tested, contact Attune Hearing today on 1300 736 702 with one of our qualified Audiologists.
