Licensing the deaf driver.

Abstract

THE US Public Health Service has recently prepared a monograph giving recommendations concerning the licensing of medically impaired motor vehicle operators.¹The information is designed as a guideline for state medical advisory boards to use in their role as consultants to the motor vehicle administrators. The hearing section is presented here so that otolaryngologists and others interested in this area are aware of the criteria and classification being used and thus able to better council their patients. The criteria outlined in this guide have been developed along functional and symptomatic lines, rather than along pathologic and anatomic classifications because it is the functional and symptomatic limitations of illness that directly affect driving capability. The guide should be considered as a constructive approach toward the establishment of uniform levels of function for granting driving licenses throughout the United States. Although it is based on the best evidence and advice now