What does a driving assessment look like?

Author: Sharon Jang | Reviewer: Lisa Kristalovich | Published: 6 July 2022 | Updated: ~

Before getting on the road again, a formal driving assessment is often done by an occupational therapist or a driving rehabilitation specialist. During these assessments, the specialist will go over your medical history, driving history, and goals for driving. In addition, they will evaluate many aspects of your health and functioning, which include the following:

The specialist will assess if you are seeing things correctly with a vision test.

Many aspects of your physical abilities will be assessed, including:

• The strength and amount of movement in your limbs for controlling the vehicle
• How much are you able to rotate your head and neck to check for vehicles
• How quickly you are able to react to other vehicles, pedestrians, and other objects on the road (i.e., your reaction time)
• Balance, which is used for getting in and out of the vehicle and being able to sit still while making turns
• Hand-eye coordination

Driving requires a lot of focus. Some tests will be done to evaluate how well and fast your brain is working. Some of these include:

• Memory, which can influence remembering the rules of the road and navigating the road
• Visual processing, or how fast you understand and interpret what you see happening on the road
• Visual spatial abilities, or being able to identify where things are on the road and judging their distance
• Visual perception, or your brain’s ability to make sense of what you see
• Attention, which is required for paying attention to the road
• Judgement and decision making, which are used in cases of knowing when to go/stop, when to switch lanes, etc.

Mood and behaviours may also be evaluated during an assessment. Some traits may be red flags for driving, including being overly anxious on the road, being impulsive, and being highly irritable.