Here’s some additional information on incidence rates from this article on unintended acceleration in the Los Angeles Times.
According to this website, drivers 25-55 have an accident rate which is more than 400 times that of those under 15.
mangeorge, do you think that this is an accurate summary of the linked data?
Huh? Me?
Oh, well sure. Actually, they have 400 times as many accidents. If “rate” means per year, I agree. And they kill more than 400 times as many people.
Maybe that’s why we don’t hear much about the kiddies.
Interesting. The 15-24’s do much worse than the over 55’s. Look at those 25 - 34’s! Crapola!
What?
You want to give free limo rides to kids under 15?
One problem elderly drivers have that hasn’t been mentioned here:
Familiarity with routes.
The odds favor an elderly person living in the same residence for many many many many years. And he/she has probably been driving to certain destinations (stores, clubs, restaurants, etc) for many of those years. Naturally, the driver probably takes the same route each time he drives to the same destination. In a sense, that route is “programmed” into him, and he will drive that route every time without even thinking about it. Get out of bed. Get dressed. Drive to cafe on automatic pilot. Every morning, for years.
Suddenly, there is some kind of minor change introduced along that route. The driver goes on completely unaware of the change, and an accident happens.
My father, a police officer, told me that one of the most common things said by elderly drivers after an accident is “I always go this way”. But something unexpected happened.
A few years ago I was sitting in a bar when an elderly man came in ranting about the traffic ticket he’d just gotten. He’d been cited for making an illegal left turn at the corner right before the tavern. That particular intersection has a sign that says “No Left Turn Except Transit”. The man kept repeating, over and over, “I’ve been turning there for years and I never saw that sign!” Now, that would be understandable if the sign had just been posted. But in fact, the sign had been there for more than a year at that point. Since this man was a regular patron of the tavern, it was clear that he was making that illegal left turn for more than a year. The man had been driving the same route for so many years that he was completely oblivious to the changes. As far as I’m concerned, the fact that he could completely miss that sign for more than a year tells me that he was not paying attention to his surroundings while he was driving.
This may not be relevant to the thread, but one problem I see and hear about often are elderly pedestrians being involved in collisions with vehicles.
Do older people tend to make poor judgements at road crossings? Or are they just more likely to be walking around?
Not any media I’m privy to.
Well, the attitude you’re describing would be pretty radical IMO, and I think we agree that nobody in this thread has suggested anything of the kind - certainly not me. There are plenty of folks in their 80s who are sharp as a tack; I completely agree with you - a blanket ban on all drivers over a certain age would be completely unfair.
No, you were mischaracterizing suggestions I made for testing, and following up with a sarcastic comment about needing to test driving skills, not writing skills.**
As would I.
I do not support premature mandatory re-road testing, for instance at 65, the presumed automatic age of onset of senility which was mentioned earlier in this thread. Sweeping testing requirements at frequent intervals will be a major headache for good drivers and contribute to a big increase in bureaucracy, so they need to be grounded in good sense and backed by statistics. Road tests at earlier ages could be triggered if problems are picked up through other means (such as friends, relatives and MDs doing their civic duty and reporting difficulties). And if much younger age groups have as high or worse safety records, they need to be retested as well. There’s no reason to give a 50-year free pass to a teenager who managed to keep reckless tendencies in check long enough to pass a road test, but demand that everyone over a magic age get retested every two years.
As to why accidents involving elderly drivers seem to trigger especial angst in some people, the reason seems to be generalized annoyance with old folks, even when obeying traffic laws completely. You see it in virtually every road rage thread on the SDMB, where people are frothing about some old guy tooling along at under the speed limit. You get the feeling that some participants in this debate would be entirely happy if all elderly drivers were cleared off the roads so that they could speed without hindrance.
Real-road case-in-point though the age of the driver isn’t given.
If incidents like this make the news repeatedly, I can imagine seeing more concrete barriers, including those “dragon-teeth” pylons, installed in and around pedestrian promenades, as well as in front of certain buildings. If you can’t get the incompetent old people to stop driving, insurance companies may end up reasoning that its cheaper to encourage policyholders to at least put immovable objects in their path. Ironically, the same measures used to thwart terrorist truck-bombers would be used to keep old people at bay.
If this particular promenade had pylons every 50 yards or so, at least the driver wouldn’t have been able to go a whole 2.5 blocks (!) before stopping. It’ll be a pain in the ass for delivery and service vehicles that may have a legitimate reason for driving (slowly) on the promenade, but that’s life.
It’s common for people in the earliest stages of dementia to function very well as long as they are in their familiar surroundings and following their usual routine; their subtle cognitive impairments don’t become noticable until a change happens to disrupt that routine, at which point they can’t compensate effectively and get into trouble. I wonder if something like this might have happened in the Santa Monica incident: the driver was apparently accustomed to driving that route regularly, so closing the road for the Farmer’s Market was an unexpected change in the driver’s usual routine.
That’s one reason cognitive testing such as Jackmannii has proposed could be very useful in the re-testing of elderly drivers. It can pick up very subtle signs of cognitive impairment, long before they’re noticble by the driver and his/her family and friends; drivers showing such signs could then be “flagged” for further, more in-depth testing to determine whether they’re too mentally impaired to drive safely.
No, of course I’m not suggesting that we don’t test them at all. I merely pointing out what I see as a teensy bit of hypocrisy. Let’s take away the licences or driving privileges of teen drivers based on arbitrary guidelines, but let’s take the nice, individual based approach to older drivers. This doesn’t compute to me.
Also, while I’ll agree that some younger drivers can tone down the agression for a driving test, most can’t, IMHO, and it’s reasonably easy to perceive if the tester is well-trained. But they aren’t.
My proposal would be: Highly-trained driving testers administering a test that includes a written potion, rules of the road, heavy traffic test, highway speed test, and a portion where response to high-stress situations is testing, including skids and spins, accident-simulation tests, and driving under unfavorable conditions (snow, rain). These tests would be administered every other year, and passing scores would be higher than the current, I think, 70 percent. I’m sorry, but 70 or 80 percent is not an acceptable score to be driving a motor vehicle.
All this talk of stats, normalization, picking on specific age groups, and the best frequency for re-testing seems to me, to be missing the real point.
Certain people either haven’t yet gained, or have lost their ability to drive safely consitently. I think we can ALL agree on that. I think that a key step to preventing many of these accidents is to empower family, friends, and maybe victims with a reporting system. No, I don’t mean a systemlike Califonia’s which acts like a witch-hunt/tattletale system for revenge. I think that if a person is observed driving as if they have lost their ability to do so safely, there should at least be a method for drawing attention to that person before they cause anyone harm.
If we start with the people who have demonstrated their inability to drive, we might be able to avoid having to place restrictions on the elderly so soon and so often. Obviously people’s ability to drive decreases as they age, I think testing should increase in accordance.
Basically, people who don’t have the ability to drive safely anymore, should have their license yanked regardless of age. The elderly should not be judged solely by the bad apples that we should be weeding out in the first place.
Just my 2 cents.
Well I apologize if I offended you. I was trying to be pointed with my remark, not sarcastic.
O.K., but you’re STILL not explaining why it would be all right to require written tests, but not road tests. Wouldn’t all your arguments against the road test apply to the written test as well? BTW, the onset age for required testing at renewal that was proposed in the past was 75, not 65, and it was indeed grounded in good sense and backed by statistics.
Actually, I believe that is the system that’s currently in place in California, and it is being criticized for not working.
Actually, the restrictions on teenagers are pretty strict. And I think it’s warranted. I’m not sure what you mean by “50-year free pass”, though. You can start driving at 16, IIRC, and you stop being a teenager at 20, so that’s 4 years, not 50 years.
Well, I see you’ve got your dander up about something that supposedly occured in another thread, but I don’t see what it has to do with the issue at hand.
Guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree here, since no proposals for written/cognitive testing and/or complaints from interested parties triggering road testing will satisfy you.**
I’m not sure how the regs in various states treat 16-year-olds, but I got a license at 17 and since then have never had to pass anything more strenuous than a “gimme” written test when moving to a new state. If some test that’s meaningful in your eyes gets instituted when I become a codger, that’ll have been something like a 50-year “free pass”.
One can have a safe driving record with no license revocations and still be a menace on the road (I speak from knowledge of my mother-in-law and her perfect driving stats, which would be viewed with disbelief by the guy working in the manhole, whom she almost decapitated).
And in conclusion, may I say: [Mr. Magoo] ROAD HOG!!! [/Mr. Magoo]
I don’t know if testing would really be that effective. Case in point: my then 84-year-old great-grandmother took my brother and I (then 10 and 16) to lunch one day while we spent the week with her. While we were on the way to lunch, she drove up over the sidewalk and nearly hit a small boy. Then, when we were about to get to the pancake place, she drove into the new car lot next door and complained that she couldn’t find parking, and didn’t believe us when we told her that it was the wrong place. She’d been tested at the DMV a week earlier…
When we begin the testing of people over the age of 60/65/75, exactly what happens when the person fails the test? Are they denied a license forever? Do they get to retake the test? Although, I think there should be the chance to retake the test, I can picture a tester saying “Oh, no here comes Mr. Schultz again!” 
If you’re “60/65/75” and fail whatever test has been deemed acceptable by the state you live in, you should NOT be able to drive anymore. Show me some stats about people’s perception, reaction times, physical ability, reasoning abilities, motor skills, or adaptability increasing with age, and you’ll still only have half a leg to stand on. I’m not for ostracizing the elderly, but aging and deterioration halt for no man. Sad but true.
“Here comes Mr. Schultz, he always passes these tests with flying colors.” Until he has a stroke at the wheel and runs over 20 people. “If only we could have prevented this.”
Prevention!..not reaction.
Not only is your reply a complete non-sequitur, it is factually incorrect as well. Please try to keep up with the thread. The question is “Why do you favor mandatory written tests, but not mandatory road tests?” Surely there is some reasoning behind your assertion. And as I have already explained, complaints from interested parties ALREADY can trigger road tests. It’s not a proposal, it’s a fact.
K, I’ll go ahead and be a pariah for the sake of the people that read this board for informative purposes, **blowero[/] and jackmannii, you guys have a great dispute going on. I personally don’t feel like reading about your differences with the other guy, and neither does anyone else. I suggest that you drop it before one of you is labeled an ass. Save your wit for something worth it.
Sorry you don’t like it, dnooman, but I’m not gonna give the guy a free pass to play fast and loose with the facts just because he has an attitude about it. You can call me all the names you want, but if I’m debating someone, and they try to sidestep issues and make up stuff that’s not true, I’m gonna call them on it.
Except, of course, that a person of any age could have a bad day, be ill, etc - then recover and be able to take the test and pass.
Also, medications can have side effects. If it turns out Mr. Smith’s doctor gave him something that didn’t agree with Mr. Smith, and Mr. Smith stops taking and the side effects go away… then I’d have no problem with retesting Regardless of Mr. Smith’s age, which may be only 16 or 20 or 25 ('cause side effects happen to young people, too)
Also, if it’s a matter of a hearing problem, or some other problem that can be compensated for - again, no problem with re-testing. My father’s vision was deteriorating due to cataracts and it was becoming a problem, particulary at night. He had the cataracts removed, and now he sees better than I do.
In short, if testing reveals a curable problem, then once the problem is resolved re-testing should be permitted. At any age.
By that rationale NONE of us should drive, since we will all, surely, one day die or be incapcitated by something and it may happen behind the wheel. We can not anticipate all occurances.
A couple years ago a 35 or 40 year old airline pilot for Northwest literally dropped dead in the aisle of a flying airplane while en route to the lavatory to take a leak. Less than six months before he had passed his physical - which for airline pilots includes an EKG and extensive work up - yet still died of sudden heart failure. Gee, maybe we shouldn’t allow 40 year old and older men to fly airliners - whoa, wait a minute, that would eliminate 80% of the airline pilots, wouldn’t it? Gotta re-think that…
We’ve got to get past the idea that “Age XX = YY”. There are responsible 16 year old drivers, incompent 30 year olds, and some old folks are safe to be on the road. As long as you are capable of being a safe and responsible driver you should have the option of keeping your license. I also think that you should have demonstrate your safe driving abilites periodically.
Cost a lot of money? Create a bureaucracy? So what - charge for the testing. If you can’t afford $100 every 4-5 years for a competancy test I’m supposed to believe you can afford to maintain and insure a road-worthy vehicle? Would that hurt poor people? In some cases - I’ve been poor and live 10 years of my adult life unable to afford a car. I still managed to get to work, the store, etc. and worked my way up the ladder to being able to owe a car. The only people I’d feel sorry for are the disabled, who either can’t drive or would require expensive adaptions to drive - but that’s different topic.
And those driving services for the disabled/elderly? From what I’ve seen they’re crap. In Chicago they’re notorious - to use the disabled services of mass transit you have to call in 24 hours in advance, there are only so many slots so once they’re filled you’re S.O.L., they’re frequently late, and sometimes don’t show up at all. It’s not a taxi service. Actually, some of the taxi services do have handicap-usuable cars and vans… so clearly there’s a niche here that needs to be filled. Oh, don’t get me started…