Ishihara Test

[DEAN]

Hello everyone,

Do you have to pass the Ishihara test to be a Conductor??

 

[Lrd]

More than likely.

I had to do a colour blindness test for a safety critical platform assistant application.

 

[Minilad]

Hello everyone,

Do you have to pass the Ishihara test to be a Conductor??

I had to. It was 12 years ago but I couldn't see why it would have changed.

 

[9K43]

At every railway medical I have attended, you are given this colour blind test, and thats a lot of medicals.
As a guard, when shunting a train 75SLU's long your eyesight and colour preception have to be near perfect to sight distant signals.
The drivers eyesight test is to make the bottom line of the test, and the guard next to the bottom line.
BR provided railway issue spectacles, which were to a set standard.
These were issued to drivers and guards to a recent eye test prescription.
For the eye sight test glasses could be worn.
( I have a drawer full of old railway glasses.)
Also if your were traincrew, you had to have a spare pair of glasses when on duty.

 

[WSW]

Hello everyone,

Do you have to pass the Ishihara test to be a Conductor??

Not sure. But please note - the Ishihara test is flawed. If you fail Ishihara it may NOT mean you are colour blind. Try to get your management to consider a test based on aptitude rather than Ishihara.

It may be that Ishihara detects those who are truly colour blind but it also catches a good number who are not. I'm not sure why it fails but it could be something to do with the presentation which is, let's face it, very artificial.

My own experiences may help to explain why Ishihara is flawed. I always fail Ishihara (and similar) and yet I am not colour blind as I pass every other test. I have worked as a cartographer since 1973 - I was turned down at Ordnance Survey due solely to failing Ishihara but managed to persuade the interview board to give me an aptitude test which I passed 100% (much to their amazement). I've had a long and successful career in mapmaking despite being wrongly classed as colour blind.

One big problem is that insurance companies dictate Ishihara to railway companies, probably because insurance companies don't care two hoots whether Ishihara is flawed. I'm currently in discussion with a heritage railway who seem to have dropped alternative tests "flag tests" for Ishihara failees and I suspect their insurance requirements have been tightened. Fine but they are losing good, competent staff through this stance.

 

[RJ]

Ishihara contains images that don't have any numbers in them to see if the person being tested is lying about what they see. I didn't know this the first couple of times I took it and it worried me that a couple of the images didn't appear to have any numbers in them, until my optician confrimed it was a bit of a hoax. Unless the HR mistakenly set the pass mark at above 85% or remove the duds, there's no reason why one with full colour vision should fail.

 

[whhistle]

Not sure. But please note - the Ishihara test is flawed.

This.

While I am very slightly colour blind, I fail that test (although not by much). However, if I stand on the platform I can see perfectly the colour of the signals. If I needed to for work, then I would challenge anyone who suggests I cannot see the signals due to my failing of the Ishihara test because they can't prove that I can't see the colours, where as I can prove that I can.

 

[WSW]

Ishihara contains images that don't have any numbers in them to see if the person being tested is lying about what they see. I didn't know this the first couple of times I took it and it worried me that a couple of the images didn't appear to have any numbers in them, until my optician confrimed it was a bit of a hoax. Unless the HR mistakenly set the pass mark at above 85% or remove the duds, there's no reason why one with full colour vision should fail.

Not sure about "duds" or "lying"! All I know is I fail Ishihara big time. But I can see and distinguish colours perfectly well in everyday use, including railway duties. So there is something wrong with Ishihara, for sure. I'd be very pleased to work with someone doing research into colour blindness.

I still think many people are denied work and careers through use of the flawed Ishihara test.

 

[DEAN]

Thanks for all the replies and it has left me with a positive outcome, if lucky enough I shall attend the interview and sit the tests and see what happens.

Thanks again.