Alright, not all old people drive slow, but it seems a good chunk of slower drivers seem to be 65+.
By slow I mean 5-10mph below the speed limit, which means they’re going 10-20mph slower than every other car on the road.
It can be quite a scare to be going 60 on the freeway then come up on a car only going 40. Especially if you just come over a hill or around a curve. Don’t these people look at their speedometers?
I know there are studies about old drivers and accidents, but are there any about old drivers and the speeds they travel at?
Perhaps some older people are compensating for their slowed reactions by taking their time and giving themselves more reation time? Maybe their eyesight ain’t what it used to be and they don’t want to miss a roadsign?
Maybe they’ve retired and don’t CARE how long it takes to get there!
I live in Walnut Creek, home to Rossmoor, the land where the blind can drive, and do.
Older people have slower reflexes. And many older people suffer from a variety of vision problems. Thus, if they are going to drive at all, please lord, let them drive slowly.
I’m pushing 40, and I notice that my need for speed has decreased dramatically. The speed limit is fine for me.
When I was a kid, I noticed all the slow old people, and hatched my on theory to explain it:
They had all learned to drive way back when the Model T couldn’t do more than 30 mph or so. It just became their habit to go that slow because of the mechanical limitations of early cars, a habit that had remained throughout life.
Now that I’m grown up and the oldsters of today who learned to drive on later models are still going slow, I have had to drop that theory.
DPWhite, blind people actually drive cars? There was a scene in Scent of a Woman where blind Al Pacino drove through the streets of New York City for thrills, and had to bluff his way out of a ticket when a cop stopped him. But I thought that was just a movie.
I’m 42, and only “felt a need to decrease speed” after getting so many tickets my license was suspended twice. No problem with reflexes.
That isn’t always so. I was on the freeway last week, speed limit was 65, I was going exactly 65, as were most of the other cars on the road. Suddenly I noticed that a blue sedan I was approaching was going much, much slower than everyone else…approximately 50 miles an hour. Everyone had to adjust and improvise for that one car…hit the brakes, change lanes, etc. That blue sedan was being driven by a lady who was at least 70 years old. By driving so slow she put that section of the freeway into termoil. And nobody was speeding. Her slow speed is what caused it.
Yes, I know many people who are legally blind who drive. It is quite scary. You don’t want them to drive faster. They are “everything is complete darkness blind”, but shapes and light, or only peripherial vision or really nearsighted blind.
Permit me to add one more thought to the discussion.
Highway posted speed limits are actually that------limits!
The maximum allowable speed on the road based on existing condition variables.
No one is REQUIRED to drive at the posted speed--------but they are limited to that max MPH figure.
The interstate system also posts a minimum speed requirement, which allows for about a 20 mph range in which one can legally operate.
If the"slow" driver is operating within legal limits-------what’s the beef?
You can always leave a little earlier to get to a destination, and maybe even be able to enjoy the beauty of the countries billboards and empty beer cans!
A. We all know that the speed limits are widely ignored: On my morning commute, the de facto speed on the highway is from 80-95 MPH, with an 80MPH cap when going by cops.
B. The driver pkbites describes is an inconsiderate person. She has no right to hold up a large group of people, just because she is too lazy to step down on the gas pedal a little harder.
C. If the driver from B prefers to drive slowly, she does not belong on a limited-access highway. Surely, there are local roads that would get her to her destination, with slower speeds.
I’m not trying to turn this into a rant about old drivers. Hell, I’d rant about teenage drivers first.
All I wanted to know is, why do older drivers seem to insist to drive much slower that the flow. This is true even when the limit is slower. I see grandmas driving 20 in a 35, 30 in a 50, etc.
I was hoping we had some seniors here (60+) who could give a clue.
I’d like to repeat what I said about not all older drivers driving slow. One of my best friends is a gentleman who retired from the company I work for. He’s 68 and drives 85-90 on the highway all the time. He’s always getting pulled over, and he doesn’t give a shmidt. I would probably be impeding him.
I don’t know about where you live, but here in North Carolina, the speedlimit works in 2 ways.
The obvious, don’t go too fast over the speed limit…
Don’t go too SLOW either.
If you are caught going more than 10mph under, and there are 5 or more cars being held up behind you, you can be ticketed. It sounds quite silly, but, it really is in the best interest of the other drivers, and it calls for a safer driving environment.
I’ve seen 82 summers,still drive everywhere,on the freeways I set the CC at limit+2,and do the Hawaii bit----hang loose.
On all roads I govern my speed by the conditions------but my standards differ from everyone elses.
Slow drivers are like stop signs,traffic lights,ragers,Road hogs,radar guns and semi-jockeys running a blockade----------Y’don’t like them but y’gotta live with them.
When the guy who passes me flips me the bird I usually meet him again at the next light or watering hole.
As long as I can travel fast enough to keep ahead of the tax collector,the undertaker and the local fuzz ’ I’m happy as if I had my right mind!
I’m 36, and more often than not I drive at extra-legal speeds. When I’m a bit tired, though, I instinctively drive slower. Maybe these older folks are … well, tired.
I’ve been a keen observer of my parent’s driving habits, from the early 1970s to the present. (They’re in their early 1970s.) Dad was always relatively slow, Mom keeps up with the flow of traffic but has been falling abck in recent years.
Why? Reflexes are one thing. Being tired is another.
Another thing to consider is the handling characteristics of modern cars. North American cars from the 1970s and earlier were pretty much sleds – fast and floaty, but with very poor handling and road feel. I’m uncomfotable behind the wheel of any American vehicle from the 1960s and 1970s, with vauge road feel and power steering that you can turn with a broken pinky finger. They’re unpredictable creatures.
A late model Buick handles much better than sports cars of the 1960s, but the oldsters don’t realize that. They’re driving vehicles that are actually quite nimble as if they were land barges.
Finally, there’s the amount of traffic. Roads are much more crowded compared to those in the 1950s or even the 1970s. Consideration of other drivers really wasn’t critical back then – if someone’s driving slow, you went around them. Now, though, a few oldsters driving far below the limit create a rolling roadblock – they aren’t aware that they’re inconveniencing many drivers by creeping along way under the limit. You don’t have to be polite on empty roads, but on gridlocked urban thoroughfares in American suburbs, it’s a different story.
My wag is it’s more relaxing. You don’t have to slow down / change lanes as you approach slower cars. You always have plenty of room ahead of you. If there is stopped traffic ahead you are creating a bottleneck so fewer cars will get to the jam point so you will have less waiting time (by causing more delays behind you when that heavy traffic flow hits that bottle neck), They realze that they are not in a rush to get to where they are going and they most likely leave more time to get there.
On a similar thread, I found a cite, that told about senior citizens compensating for the loss of driving skills. One way of course is that they slow down. They also like to drive in larger cars and many avoid interstate highways (women also do this). Today, there are two groups of poor drivers:
[ul][li] seniors[/li][li] teenagers[/ul][/li]
What needs to be realized is that seniors are at least trying to compensate for their lack of ability. Teenagers of course see no reason to do so. And if you still think that all seniors drive slow, you better watch out for my 88 year old dad in his Caddy :eek:, the only reason he slowed down any was that the tickets had made insurance companies turn him down.
According to my father, who is a shrink, and a gradute school gerentology proff(actually, hes retired, he just teaches a couple of classes at baylor now), but he was head of Gerentology at St. Paul, its due to reflexes and eyesight.
