My sincere apologies.
This OP has gotten my dander up, but I now realize that I have gone over the line.
I should have responded in a gentlemanly fashion. Instead, my obnoxiousness has merely weakened my case.
Once again, I apologize to all concerned.
But wouldn’t you agree that 18-year-old drivers have more maturity than the 16y.o. ones?
Granted, now that I’m in my 30s, I look back at when I was 18 and I was a real putz…but my judgement was still better than at 16.
Being a good driver isn’t necessarily all about skill. It’s also about having good judgement and a sense of mortality. At 16, kids are showing off, hot-dogging and generally playing with a $20,000 new toy.
At 18, they’re thinking about their future and being accepted as adults. They have a more developed sense of responsibility and they’re more mature.
Perhaps one reason that the elderly (and FTR: I can’t really bring myself to consider anyone younger than my parents – 60 and 61 – as being elderly. I’m thinking 70-118 y.o.) are slower is their heightened sense of mortality. They’ve seem their bodies becoming more fragile with age, and they’re more reluctant to take chances. So it’s slow and steady for them.
But nobody can deny that as we get older, our sight and hearing detriorate, our thought processes and our reaction times slow considerably and we tend to take medication. If I were to lose partial sight in both eyes, I’d sell my car. I’d be a danger to myself and others. If I get a tooth pulled and I’m medicated for the pain, I would have a friend chauffeur me around or take the bus, because otherwise I may as well drive drunk. Medication comes with warning labels. “Do not take this if you have high blood pressure.” “Do not take this if you are also taking [another drug],” And most importantly, “Do not drive or operate heavy machinery.” I don’t know what kinds of medication many of our seniors are on, but I’d be curious to know how many of them are of the “do not drive or operate heavy machinery” type. I’d also like to know how many of those labels get ignored. And yes, I know that some younger people also ignore those labels. But seniors take more and varied types of meds than us young whippersnappers.
OK, the thread title was a bit inaccurate. I’m sure that Bricker didn’t mean that “If your children have children, you should not drive.” I’m pretty sure that he used “Grandpa” as a euphemism for “elderly driver.”
So let’s don’t get that semantic.
Quite a while back we had a poster that suggested using paintball guns to mark the cars that piss you off.
Driving crazy,too slow etc.
We all have that ability,well sort of, by getting their license number and reporting them.
My parents are in their 80s now and Mom has voluntarily given up her licecse. Dad,a retired truck driver, still does a pretty good job of driving.
If you use Dad as your prime example you begin to see that grouping old people into a group is wrong.
Also it is my opinion,also a old truck driver, many people should NEVER have a license.
Maybe putting your insurance companies telephone number on your rear bumper with the message “How is my driving” would make a difference.
Well Hell
Grouping them is wrong.
Grouping them into a group may be right.
But them you should group everyone into two groups too.
For the record, while I think the idea of my original post was solid, the title and some language therein was ill-chosen, and has served to distract people from the debatable issues. I wrote it very tongue-in-cheek; you would think that I, an Usetnet veteran of ten years, would be hip to the loss of such nuance by by now, and in this case I was not. For this, I apologize.
The legitimate topic for debate remains, however. Ought we, in the person of our state governments, insist on more frequent road, vision, or skill tests for (a) older drivers, and/or (b) all drivers? And assuming either choice is palatable, does the AARP deserve criticism for its vigorous lobbying efforts against same?
Where is this vigorous lobbying, Bricker. I went to the AARP website and could find no mention of it. Plenty of stuff about driver safety and such, but nada about licensing. Could be that it’s just not an issue in California. I dunno.
If we’re going to restrict a persons ability to get around independently, whenever they just happen feel like going somewhere, we need to provide that person with an alternative to driving which comes as close as possible to the freedom of driving. Mass transit, friends and realtives, and taxis simply don’t fill this need. A lot of seniors would rather not drive, but don’t have any other way to get around.
Getting old is reality. Hiding our geezers won’t change that.
Peace,
mangeorge
I have noticed that alot of the respondents here who say that they are older usually maintain that they are also good drivers. Well, I don’t know if you can be so sure. Leave it up to the dudes on the left and right of you on the road who are scrambling to and fro for their lives to determine that. You may never have had speeding tickets (which is more likely to fall on younger drivers) but going too slow is just as dangerous. What ticks me off is the experience I had with one old nerd. He was actually driving a livery cab and decided to let go of his fare IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET, taking up two lanes, one of which was mine. I had to slow down and go around him, JUST AS HE STARTED UP AGAIN - NOT EVEN SEEING ME. I HAD THE RIGHT OF WAY. HE DIDN’T EVEN SEE ME. I found myself in front of him and noticing the ding-dong in my rear view, saw him looking out and copying something down. My liscence plate number? For what, to report to the authorities that I was following the laws of the road? Nonetheless, I forgot about him until a few seconds later when the jerk decided to pull up to the left of me at a red light and lean on his horn so he could get my attention. I looked over and noticed the toothless goober cursing me out, ALL THE WHILE HE WAS IN THE LANE FOR ONCOMING TRAFFIC.
I bet this guy would sit down and type out how he was nearly run off the road by some young whipper-snapper who flouts the rules of the day and then post it to this very forum without a second thought.
Old people deserve to be part of society, just like every one else. But just like every one else it should not be up to their own self-assessment to determine to what extent they can participate.
Thanks, beagledave.
I’ve skimmed these stories, and later I’ll go read them at length.
Peace,
mangeorge.
So, Tony, why’d you try to run that professional driver off the road? Do they have driver training where you live? And might I suggest some anger management counseling?
Peace,
mangeorge
blessedwolf:
Possibly… but that’s very subjective and very dependent on the individual. What we need are statistics showing the safety of 16-year-old new drivers vs. 18-year-old new drivers.
mangeorge
I haven’t seen anyone advocate that people lose their license simply due to their age, only that they should be retested at some point.Since you exclude mass transit, taxis, and friends and relatives as acceptable alternatives,(I can’t imagine what would be acceptable, except perhaps a live-in paid driver) Do you think that people who can no longer drive competently should nevertheless be allowed to, simply for their own convenience?
I have to say, in my own experience,people who can no longer competently drive don’t often admit their limitations even to themselves, and will continue driving until forced in some way to stop. My grandfather drove until he was in his 80’s, and would have continued, except that after he nearly killed someone ( he had a stop sign, and didn’t hear or see the motorcycle that had the right of way on the intersecting street-the guy spent over a year in rehab) his children basically told him if he continued to drive, they wouldn’t respond the next time he had an accident (this wasn’t the first). The truly scary part is , he had been driving at least since the 1930’s, and until he stopped driving in about 1995, the only retesting was of his vision ( and even that wasn’t done by the DMV,but by his own doctor)
Much of the annoyance with elderly drivers voiced here and elsewhere is that they are too slow. In fact, a large percentage of complaints I hear about “bad drivers” in general is that they are too slow, clog up passing lanes etc.
From my own observations, the people who are most vociferous about this are the ones who feel they have the right to travel at 80 mph on the freeways (or 50 on secondary roads) and that everyone else must get out of their way. The “danger” from the slower drivers actually comes from the loons tailgating and zizagging in and out of traffic to get to their destinations a couple of minutes sooner. “Grandpa” is not a menace if he is doing 55 mph in a 55 zone and you want to do 80 - you are.
Suggestion for Tony’s elderly cab-driving friend: signal and pull over to the side to let your passenger out. Suggestion for Tony: try waiting a few seconds in such a situation before ducking out of a traffic lane and cutting back in front of the other driver (probably in his blind spot) and risking an accident.
Of course you can’t provide a live-in driver for each old person. But we could provide a much better ride service.
We have a voucher system where I live, where the old can folks receive vouchers for rides. Problem is, these riders are put at the bottom of the list. Behind more lucrative fares. It’s not unusual for a voucher fare to have to wait a couple of hours or more for a ride. While I realize that this is business, there’s no reason why we couldn’t find a way to cut this wait time to 15-30 mins. max. Expensive? Probably. So what? Accidents are expensive.
Try to put yourself in the position of the people who must depend on others to simply get around.
No wonder so many resist losing their driving priviledges. Some will resist anyway, of course, but at least we can offer an alternative.
We should stop trying to hide our old folks and start enjoying them.
Peace,
mangeorge
Mangeorge,
I’m not really sure why cabs are an unacceptable alternative while a voucher system with a short wait would be acceptable. As far as I can see, the only difference would be the cost to the rider.All elderly people aren’t poor ( and most of the poor aren’t elderly).Perhaps there wouldn’t be as long a wait if the free rides were restricted to those who can’t afford to pay for a cab.
A better system of rides- maybe that could be done, but I don’t know. We have a paratransit system here- no vouchers-you sign up for the service (you must be disabled in some way- at least to the point where you physically are unable to use public transportation) and call a few days before you need the ride. You can’t get a ride for a spur-of the-moment trip, and even if you get a ride (and you don’t always), you have to be ready 20 min before the appointment and wait up to 20 min after. This is a service that doesn’t have any “paying” customers- everyone pays 1/2 of the public transit fare,so it’s not a matter of preferring full fare.It’s the logistics involved in having unpredictable demand for door to door rides.It’s simply not practical to have enough vehicles for everyone to get a ride every day at the time they want (that would be the equivalent of having a driver and car on call for each subscriber),and since the transportation is door to door (since those who qualify are unable to use mass transit) and not restricted to regularly occurring situations ( work, school etc) it’s just about impossible to set up routes in most cases.
I understand that it’s difficult for people to depend on others and mass transit to get around, but those difficulties are not limited to the elderly.People who don’t drive because they can’t afford a car, or because they have disabilities that prevent them from getting a license, or simply because they can’t pass a test also have those problems. No one advocates that these people should be able to drive regardless of their disabilities or incompetence,or should be provided with a car if they can’t afford one, or should get free cab rides. I don’t understand why, if an elderly person’s “ability to get around independently” shouldn’t be restricted (even if incompetent to drive) without providing an acceptable alternative (not to include mass transit,full-fare cab rides or friends and relatives),that wouldn’t apply to anyone whose “ability to get around independently is restricted”, even if it’s restricted because they caused an accident on their road test.
Jackmannii:
In my experience, Grandpa is more often going 45-50 mph on the 60 or 70 mph freeway.
And not ALL of them are slow. My grandfather speeds and drives like a maniac. Ditto my grandmother on the other side. (Although she isn’t a horrible driver…not yet, anyways, she just has a lead foot.)