Nearly seven percent of those applying for driving licence medically unfit

Nearly seven percent of those who applied for a driver’s license in 2022 were medically unfit to drive, due to their poor health, National Transport Medical Institute (NTMI) said in its 2022 Annual Report.

847,306 applicants took medical exams conducted by NTMI. 58,641, i.e., 6.92 percent, failed the exams, the NTMI said.

Defective vision (73.89 percent) is the major reason why most applicants fail. Meanwhile 3.11 percent failed the test because of diabetes and 1.46 percent due to heart disease.

Identifying these individuals before they receive a licence contributes to minimizing road accidents, the NTMI said.In 2019 the number of those tested by NTMI was 1,043, 705, it dropped to 835, 924 tests in 2020 and 745,365 in 2021. (RK)