Don’t take your eyes off the road. While this might be sound advice, how about your other senses? As an example, think about the amount of work your ears are doing when you’re driving. You’re using your ears to connect with other individuals in your vehicle, call your attention to important info coming up on your dashboard, and help you track other vehicles.
So when you’re coping with hearing impairment, the way you drive can change. That’s not to say your driving will come to be prohibitively dangerous. When it comes to safety, inexperience and distracted driving are much bigger liabilities. Nevertheless, some specific precautions should be taken by individuals with hearing loss to ensure they keep driving as safely as possible.
Establishing good driving habits can go a long way to help you remain a safe driver even if hearing impairment might be affecting your situational awareness.
How hearing loss could be affecting your driving
Generally, driving is a vision-centered task (at least, if it’s not a vision-centric activity, something has gone wrong). Even if you have complete hearing loss, your driving could change but you will still likely be able to drive. After all, you use your hearing quite a bit while you’re driving. Here are some typical examples:
- Your sense of hearing can help you have a better sense of other vehicles near you. You will typically be able to hear an oncoming truck, for example.
- Other drivers will often honk their horns to make you aware of their presence. If you fail to notice the light turn to green, for instance, or you start to drift into the other lane, a horn can get your attention before it becomes an issue.
- Your hearing will usually alert you when your car is damaged in some way. If your motor is knocking or you have an exhaust leak, for example.
- Audible alerts will sound when your car is attempting to alert you to something, such as an unbuckled seat belt or an open door.
- You can often hear emergency vehicles before you can see them.
By using all of these audio cues, you will be developing stronger situational awareness. As your hearing loss advances, you may miss more and more of these cues. But you can take some positive measures to keep your driving as safe as possible.
New safe driving habits to develop
It’s no problem if you want to continue driving even after you have hearing loss! Stay safe out on the road with these tips:
- Minimize in-car noises: It will be difficult for your ears to isolate sounds when you’re going through hearing loss. It will be easy for your ears to get overwhelmed and for you to get distracted if you have passengers loudly speaking and music playing and wind in your ears. So when you’re driving, it’s a good idea to reduce the volume on your radio, keep conversation to a minimum, and put up your windows.
- Keep your phone stowed: Even if your hearing is good, this one is still smart advice. Today, one of the leading reasons for distraction is a cellphone. And that goes double when you try to use them when you have hearing loss. Keeping your phone stowed can, simply, keep you safer–and save your life.
- Don’t ignore your dash lights: Typically, your car will ding or beep when you need to look at your instrument panel for something. So you’ll want to make sure you glance down (when it’s safe) and make sure your turn signals aren’t still blinking, or you don’t have a check engine light on.
- Check your mirrors more often: You may not be able to hear an ambulance pull up behind you–even with all those sirens going. So be vigilant about checking your mirrors. And keep the possible presence of emergency vehicles in mind.
How to keep your hearing aid driving ready
Driving is one of those tasks that, if you have hearing loss, a hearing aid can really be helpful. And when you’re driving, utilize these tips to make your hearing aids a real asset:
- Get the most recent updates and keep your hearing aid charged and clean: When you’re half way to the store, the last thing you want is for your battery to quit. That can distract you and might even create a dangerous situation. So keep your batteries charged and ensure everything’s working properly.
- Wear your hearing aid every time you drive: It won’t help you if you don’t wear it! So each time you drive, make certain you’re wearing your hearing aids. By doing this, your brain will have an easier time acclimating to the incoming sounds.
- Have us program a driving setting for you: If you intend to do a fair amount of driving, you can ask us to give you a “car” setting on your hearing aid. The size of the interior of your vehicle and the fact that your passengers will be talking to you from the side or rear will be the factors we will use to fine tune this “car setting” for easier safer driving.
Hearing loss doesn’t mean driving is an issue, especially with hearing aids which make it safer and easier. Your drive will be pleasant and your eyes will remain focused on the road if you develop safe driving habits.
