Are Elderly Drivers Making Roads Unsafe?

[MJS]

http://news.yahoo.com/driver-hits-11-elderly-drivers-making-roads-unsafe-151700875.html

Preston Carter, a 100-year old driver, backed his large blue Cadillac into a crowd of people standing on a sidewalk Wednesday afternoon near an elementary school in Los Angeles.
Four of the children were in serious condition at a hospital, city fire Capt. Jaime Moore told the Associated Press. Everyone was expected to survive, he said.
Mr. Preston has not been arrested, but the accident remains under investigation.

But this is the kind of tragic accident that reignites debate how to keep the roads safe from elderly drivers. A similar incident in 2000 in North Carolina, prompted calls for more restrictions, as The Christian Science Monitor reported at the time.

Thoughts?

 

[granfire]

Not really....

A few weeks back a truck ran into a crowd at a life stock auction, killing one.
The driver was not 100 years old but had a heart attack or a stroke...
Some risks are associated with driving - or being alive for that matter.

 

[Steve]

LOL. yeah! Of course. And it gets even worse when we require able bodied, young men and women to get commercial drivers licenses in order to operate heavy machinery, but allow 80 year old men to climb behind the wheel of a 36' Winnebago without any kind of specific endorsement.

This is a no brainer, IMO. Should we automatically take a senior citizen's license away? Absolutely not. But should we begin requiring periodic, practical driver's exams after a certain age? YES!

 

[Dirty Dog]

Sure they are. It's nothing new either. I agree with the idea of mandatory driving tests after a certain age.

On the other hand, which is worse; grandma doing 15MPH or the kid who thinks a coffee can sized exhaust on his 2L engine makes it fast, driving with the seat laid back so far that he can't see over the dash?

 

[Steve]

Sure they are. It's nothing new either. I agree with the idea of mandatory driving tests after a certain age.

On the other hand, which is worse; grandma doing 15MPH or the kid who thinks a coffee can sized exhaust on his 2L engine makes it fast, driving with the seat laid back so far that he can't see over the dash?

Ha! The age old question: Who is more dangerous driver? The senior citizen or the teenager?

But, here's the thing. There are laws in place that mitigate the teen threat. Here in Washington, for example, there are rules for teen drivers:

[h=2]Special rules for teen drivers[/h]When you get a driver license, you must follow some special rules and restrictions. These rules are in place to help protect teen drivers from accidents and help them develop and improve skills in the safest way.
If you’re under 18, you’ll be issued an intermediate driver license and must follow these special rules:

• Passengers:
  • For the first 6 months, you can’t drive with passengers under the age of 20 unless they’re members of your immediate family (such as a spouse, child, stepchild, or siblings, both by birth and marriage).
  • For the next 6 months, you can’t carry more than 3 passengers who are under 20 years old and aren’t members of your immediate family.
• Nighttime driving:
  For the first 12 months, you can’t drive between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. unless you’re with a licensed driver age 25 or older. The only exception to this rule is driving for agricultural purposes (transporting farm products or supplies under the direction of a farmer as described in RCW 46.20.070).
• Cell phones:
  You aren’t permitted to use wireless devices while driving, even with a hands-free device. This includes talking on cell phones and sending or receiving text messages. You may only use a wireless device to report an emergency.

[h=3]How long these restrictions apply[/h]After 1 year of following these rules and driving without a collision or traffic citation, you can drive without limitations to the time of day or passengers you can carry. When you turn 18, these special rules no longer apply and your intermediate driver license automatically becomes a regular license.

And the penalties are more severe, too, for infractions.

 

[Dirty Dog]

You'll notice I didn't mention adult males in modified Corvettes. We're perfectly safe.

 

[MJS]

IMO, I think they should be retested. I agree with Steve. Truck drivers, people who drive vehicles that require a certain endorsement, etc, all need special training, so why not retest someone who's at a certain age? Of course, a 19yr old, a 23yr old, and a 40yr old, can all drive like an idiot as well. However, when we hear about drivers plowing over people on a sidewalk and crashing into buildings, 9 times out of 10, the fingers point to elderly drivers.

Since Steve posted laws for teens in his state, here are the ones for mine.
http://www.ct.gov/dmv/cwp/view.asp?a=805&q=424252&dmvPNavCtr=|49087|#54884

 

[arnisador]

Yes. Solution: Better public transportation so the aged can have freedom of movement but still not pose an increased risk of injury.

 

[jks9199]

Drivers at each age and level of experience present certain dangers that are unique to that group. Teenagers bundle inexperience with poor impulse control and a tendency towards group think, but offset that with generally quicker reactions. Mature drivers lose reaction speed, and add a variety of physical infirmities and different sorts of judgement errors.

We've legislated in various ways to deal with new drivers, especially teens. These are things like restrictions on passengers, hours that they can drive, initial licensing requirements... Even so, there's no real substitute for experience and maturity.

Older drivers are addressed in other ways. Programs like the mature driver classes offered by various organizations, as well as laws that require drivers over 80 to at least take a vision test are some of them. Another one (and this applies to most drivers, really) are provisions for medical professionals, police, and even concerned family members to request a license review of a driver. I've dropped a number of these on older drivers, often following crashes or other professional encounters. I've also found that older drivers often are not really aware of current traffic laws and apply their own special interpretations of right of way... (OK, that applies to a lot of drivers, of all ages, but it seems to me that mature drivers are often more set in their ways about it.) There are also major issues about freedom when you try to take a person's license away.

 

[billc]

No, elder may be annoying, to me at least, but he should still be allowed to drive...er...that wasn't the elder you were posting about? Never mind.

 

[Cryozombie]

It's clearly the cars fault, not the operator. Ban the car I say.

 

[ballen0351]

In MD you take a vision test every time you renew your license. Is that not the case other places? Also in MD any police officer can require anyone to take a drivers reevaluation test. We fill out a form send it to Motor Vehicles and they have to retake a test or loose there license. Normally only older people get reevaluated after police witness unsafe driving.

 

[arnisador]

That seems like a helpful system. But cognitive decline can really accelerate at the ages we're talking about and it may not catch someone in time. I don't want older Americans restricted in their movements...but I do think this is an issue. Better public transportation is the best fix!

 

[Haakon]

Elderly drivers could be a threat on the road, but in the grand scale of things I think drunks, texting, 1001 gagets on the dash are a bigger threat than the elderly.

 

[Haakon]

In MD you take a vision test every time you renew your license. Is that not the case other places? Also in MD any police officer can require anyone to take a drivers reevaluation test. We fill out a form send it to Motor Vehicles and they have to retake a test or loose there license. Normally only older people get reevaluated after police witness unsafe driving.

Not in WA, the last time I had to take a vision test to renew my drivers license was probably 10 or 12 years ago, we don't even need to go to the DMV to renew it anymore, just renew it online.

 

[jks9199]

In MD you take a vision test every time you renew your license. Is that not the case other places? Also in MD any police officer can require anyone to take a drivers reevaluation test. We fill out a form send it to Motor Vehicles and they have to retake a test or loose there license. Normally only older people get reevaluated after police witness unsafe driving.

Nope. In Virginia, you can generally renew by mail/online/telephone every other renewal. Since they're now issuing license good for 8 years... that's every 16 years you have to go in. When you go in -- you have to do the vision screening. If you're under 20, and have had a moving violation, you have to take a knowledge test. You ask me -- anyone who's had a moving violation ought to have to retake the knowledge test. I think there's even a good argument to be made that if you've been involved in a reportable crash (let's be real, in many crashes -- both drivers have some fault!) you should retake both the knowledge and skills tests.

 

[ballen0351]

That seems like a helpful system. But cognitive decline can really accelerate at the ages we're talking about and it may not catch someone in time. I don't want older Americans restricted in their movements...but I do think this is an issue. Better public transportation is the best fix!

Its not cost effective for public transportation everywhere. I live 15 miles from the nearest town of an size how would you effectively operate public transportation here?

 

[Steve]

And in arizona, according to my folks, the licenses are basically never renewed. They're good for decades.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[arnisador]

Its not cost effective for public transportation everywhere. I live 15 miles from the nearest town of an size how would you effectively operate public transportation here?

No good answer. But there are lots of places that can do better...and we are now weighing dollars against lives. That calculation must be done but is never easy.

 

[ballen0351]

No good answer. But there are lots of places that can do better...and we are now weighing dollars against lives. That calculation must be done but is never easy.

Even in places that do have it getting and older person to use it would be hard. No one likes to admit they can't do something they have done for decades. A lot of the problem falls on family members not stepping in and taking away someones vehicle. We had to do that to my wife's grandfather he just couldn't see well enough to drive but wouldn't admit it we ended up just taking his keys away and made him sell his car.
t comes down to being responsible for your own family. Its hard to have that talk but its better then having them kill someone