A couple of weeks after my 75th birthday.
A friend told me that I was supposed to get a medical certificate for driving due to turning 75. I also had heard rumors about this anyway. I went down to the Department of Main Roads and asked about that. They gave me a four page form and said “get the doctor to fill in his page and the optometrist to fill in his part” I made an appointment with the doctor and after looking at it, he said “you will first need to have an eye test and get them to fill in their page”.
I made the appointment with the optometrist and proceeded to go there in a few days.The optometrist found a slight issue with my eyes although I could read small print signs several 100 yards away with or without glasses. The optometrist filled in his part so I made another appointment to go to the doctor.
A few days later at that appointment the doctor filled in his part of the form.
After nearly two weeks I was now ready to go back to the Department of Main Roads . After waiting about a half hour for my name to be called, the girl behind the counter looked over the form.There was concern about the optometrist part but the girl was very nice about it. I made sure my glasses were obvious in my top pocket and said I can see fine. I gave a demonstration to a sign on a distant wall. With or without glasses she was not convinced and went to see the manager. I could see that the manager was not concerned and brushed the issue off. The girl came back to the counter and proceeded to stamp everything and sign it off.
After I had the medical certificate in my hand I said “I received nothing in the post from DMR. So what would happen if I had ignored all of this and let it go for several months or even years”.
Her reply was, and wait for it “Most Do”.
