The Department of Motor Vehicle loves HB21-1139 that expands the rules that allow Coloradans to renew their driver’s licenses online. They say it’s convenient for drivers and reduces demand at on-site DMVs. All to the good for them. They’re not a punch line for a joke anymore, they hope. But wait.

COVID made online licensing more prevalent. When COVID restrictions hit, DMV allowed seniors to renew licenses online, saving “100,000 individuals from coming into buildings and potentially exposing them to COVID,” according to the drivers’ license director for the Department of Revenue.

It used to be that seniors 66 and older had to show a document from an ophthalmologist or optometrist that they’d had a satisfactory eye exam. That age is now stretched out to 80 years. HB21-1139 sailed through the Senate Transportation and Energy committee Tuesday, and it’s on the consent agenda for passage. It’s a done deal.

All’s well with the world, right? Except for the fact that seniors have lots of eye problems that can interfere with their driving capacity anytime, and especially at night or under dark skies and wet and snowy conditions.

How do I come to these conclusions? Guess what. It’s hard to believe, but I’m over 66 and my eyes, though not horrible, are certainly a lot worse than when I was 20 and had 20/15 vision.

Most people over 40 or 50 lose their near vision, also known as presbyopia. That means that seeing icons on the dashboard and audio systems on cars, especially in daylight with modern lighting, becomes very difficult. Talk about distracted driving. And if people who can’t see anything but blur at 15 inches want to change a tune on Spotify, guess what they have to do — push buttons blindly in hopes they hit the right one or search the car for their readers so they can see what they’re doing with the sound system but then can’t really see too far ahead for traffic dangers. Let’s hope every person with presbyopia has bifocals.

Next comes cataracts. Cataracts, according to the Cleveland Clinic website on eye aging, are cloudy areas on the lenses in front of the eye. Imagine looking through a thick smudge on your reading glasses. That’s cataracts for whatever your vision is. Doctors don’t recommend cataract surgery until your vision is good and cloudy. Then surgery replaces the lens and light shines through. It’s that middle time that’s tough, when eyes dim and night vision becomes especially bad. Drivers in Colorado need to pray for cataract surgeons and surgery.

Glaucoma is increased pressure inside the eye that can lead to vision loss and blindness, many times without symptoms. There are treatments, but it’s not curable. People with glaucoma are on the honor system with driving if they’re in between license renewals or fudge the attesting in the online certification.

Detached retina and macular degeneration are also problems with old eyes. Sometimes the retina can be re-attached, no harm, no foul. Sometimes, the damage is permanent, interrupting the transfer of images from the eye to the brain. Macular degeneration ruins central vision that allows us to see faces and read. It pushes vision to the periphery. People with macular degeneration may not be blind, but that doesn’t mean they can see well.

According to testimony at the bill’s hearing in the Senate Transportation and Energy committee, optometrists and ophthalmologists are okay with the bill. No medical professional who gives eye exams showed up for the hearing, however. The state manager of the DMV declares the bill will extend the success of the online driver’s license renewal program set with COVID. Individuals renewing their licenses mostly agree, probably.

But seniors, deep down inside, know that eye exams at DMV before age 80 are a good idea. They can be the first indicators to drivers that they really need to get glasses. Or they can determine whether a person wearing glasses can see well enough to drive.

Another option is a bit more expensive. The state could require local governments to buy big, well lit street signs so seniors don’t need a spotlight to figure out when to turn right, or left. That’s a bill everyone could get behind.