How Can Hearing Loss Affect Your Driving Habits?

Observe the road at all times. While following this advice may be wise, what about your other senses? When you’re driving, for instance, your ears are working really hard to keep you linked to the other occupants of your car, alert you to information on the dashboard, and assist you in keeping an eye out for other cars. Therefore, if you are experiencing hearing loss, your driving style may change. This does not automatically imply that you must give up driving because you are now too risky. In terms of safety, inexperience, and driving while distracted are significantly higher risks.

To ensure that they continue to drive as securely as possible, however, those with hearing loss must take some specific precautions.

Even if you have hearing loss that may affect your situational awareness, developing good driving habits will help you drive safely.

HOW HEARING LOSS MAY AFFECT YOUR DRIVING

Driving is typically a vision-centric activity (or at the very least, if it isn’t, something is wrong). Even severe hearing loss is unlikely to prevent you from driving, but it may impact the way you drive.

You do utilize your hearing quite a bit while driving, after all. A few typical examples are:

• Horns are a frequent way for other cars to alert you of their presence. A horn can alert you to your error before risky things happen, such as when you start to veer into another lane or when you stop at a green light.
• Even though the majority of cars are built to reduce road noise, your sense of hearing might make you more aware of other cars on the road. For instance, you will typically be able to hear a big truck approaching you.
• Your sense of hearing can let you know if your car has any damage. For instance, if a rock strikes your windshield or you run over anything on the road.
• Emergency vehicles are frequently audible before they are visible.
• Turn signals or unbuckled seat belts, for example, are two examples of audio alerts and noises that your car frequently makes to make you aware of something.

You may improve your general situational awareness by learning to use all of these acoustic cues. As your hearing loss worsens, you may begin to miss an increasing number of these audio cues. But you may take precautions to make sure you’re still as secure as you can be when driving.

PREPARING YOUR HEARING AID  FOR TRAVEL

Wearing a hearing aid can be quite beneficial when driving if you have hearing loss. Make the most of your hearing aids when driving by following these advices:

• Ask us for a “driving” setting: If you do a lot of driving, ask us about programming a “driving” setting into your hearing aid. Your vehicle’s interior capacity and configuration will be taken into account when adjusting this setting, making your journey easier and more enjoyable. Normally, your passenger will sit to your side rather than in front of you.
• Every time you drive, wear your hearing aid: It won’t help you if you don’t use it! So be sure you’re wearing your hearing aids each time you get behind the wheel. By doing this, your brain will have an easier time acclimating to the incoming signals.
• Get the most recent updates and keep your hearing aid clean and charged: You don’t want your hearing aid batteries to quit right when you’re driving to the store. That can be distracting and maybe even dangerous. So be sure everything is working properly and the batteries are charged.