Would this make hearing aids cheaper and more socially acceptable even when not driving?
So what is your goal in proposing this? Is it to increase driver safety or is it to socialize the use of hearing aids outside of driving? Those are two totally different goals and I think conflating them is the wrong approach.
Most of the problems we have with drivers is that we fail to require continuing education for driving. At least in the United States and I suspect many other countries driving is a skill that is taught early in life in the teenage years or early twenties. What is taught is the minimal acceptable level of driving. You get the rules of the road you have some hands-on experience with teacher that teaches you all of the most fundamental and basic skills needed. At that point you're handed a license and released into the world. This causes there to be people who have 60 years of driving experience but their experience is only in the most basic driving techniques. They have never learned advanced techniques for driving.
If we want to improve driver skills there needs to be some sort of randomized continuing education that is required. This way people are guaranteed to learn advanced skills or at least have the opportunity to learn them.
Now that (in the US) hearing aids are available off the shelf, hopefully we'll soon see more airpod-wannabes that don't look like the traditional aids. Cheaper too. But IMO that's not really a great solution to driving safety. By the time you hear something (be it a horn or a screeching crash) it's usually too late anyway.
Thats a combination of darwin-award stupid (ok their reproductive years were behind them) and ewwww to sharing earwax.