Posted on 04/05/2010 7:30:38 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Elderly drivers’ risk not clear-cut
The debate about when to take the keys away from the elderly flared up again when 86-year-old driver struck three teenage Chicago cyclists on March 24
By Erika Slife and Bonnie Miller Rubin, Tribune reporters
April 3, 2010
Alice Topping was in her convertible, soaking in one of fall's last nice days, when she came to a four-way stop in her Evanston neighborhood just as another car approached.
Assuming the other driver would stop at the sign, she began to drive through the intersection when she felt a hard crash.
"Look what you've done to my car!" the elderly driver cried as he got out of his vehicle. But as the drivers inspected the damage — her right rear side, his front — it was evident who was responsible, Topping said.
"It finally clicked in with him that he had hit my car," she said.
The memory of the 2009 crash came flooding back to Topping on March 24 after she heard that 17-year-old Faith Dremmer, a friend, had been killed when an 86-year-old driver veered across the center line, plowing into her as she biked in southern Illinois with two University of Chicago Laboratory School friends.
It made Topping and countless others wonder: Is enough being done to protect motorists from seniors who shouldn't be driving? When is it time to take the keys away?
"NO ONE over the age of 70 should be permitted to operate a motor vehicle. Period," one outraged reader opined online.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Hey, if they are farding in their own cars, what’s it to you?
I was almost in the same type of accident last week. I was going the speed limit through an intersection and a moron pulled out right in front of me (probably without even looking). Fortunately I was able to stomp on the brakes just in time to avoid hitting his truck. If I hadn’t anticipated that he wasn’t going to stop like he should have I would have slammed into him.
My 89 year old mother hasn’t driven a car in 2 or 3 years but still has a valid license. She hasn’t driven because nobody has dared tell her she shouldn’t.....and she really shouldn’t. Her reflexes are noticeably impaired due to arthritis and general old age.
I’ll be 65 in June and I hope if I ever get impaired due to age or medical condition, that I’ll be wise enough to just stop driving.
I saw someone post that age 70 should be the cut off to be allowed to drive. That’s ridiculous, my 79 year old step father is an excellent driver. It all depends on the individual, there’s no magic number at which everybody should quit driving, as you noted - that’s why we have drivers exams..
i had a friend “no longer with us” who was a driver instructor for the RTD in Los Angeles . his opinion after 20 some years of trying to teach people to drive city buses was , i will get flamed here bad no African-American women or any Asians should not be allowed to drive by the way he was African- American miss you Ed
Nonsense. My father is 72. Just passed his DL renewal, including having to retake the driving test. Did just fine. He stays off the freeways by his choice, uses a Garmin, I've ridden with him, no problem. I'd bet money that reader is under 25.
I think all drivers should probably be retested on a regular basis, maybe when their driver’s license comes up for renewal every 5 years or whatever. For drivers over a certain age, maybe license renewals and retests should come more often. There are elderly drivers on the road who just haven’t got what it takes to drive safely any more - but they’re hardly the only ones. Lot’s of younger licensed drivers never really had what it took in the first place.
Even the elderly can have a good day and pass whatever dumbed-down test the government will offer.
The problem is elderly whose family (and doctor) know they shouldn’t be driving, and don’t know how to take away the keys. Maybe a family member should be able to force a retest of an elderly family member anonymously, and the test could be a more serious one, perhaps requiring a doctor’s sign-off.
Like you I don't believe in hard age limits. But we should all be aware of what our parents can & can't do.
I saw someone post that age 70 should be the cut off to be allowed to drive. That’s ridiculous, my 79 year old step father is an excellent driver. It all depends on the individual, there’s no magic number at which everybody should quit driving, as you noted - that’s why we have drivers exams.”
Agreed, my father is 80 and drives limos for a living. Has many customers that ask for him specifically. Hope I can do the same at his age!
I agree. Let’s have some road testing done regularly and have some family involvement. I always think it’s so sad when there is a missing elderly person on the news, and they bring out some family member who says “well Gramps has been having some issues with dementia, but we never thought he’d drive off and get lost.” I always wonder if the reason the family didn’t take the keys away was because they were either in denial about how bad it was or didn’t want to be saddled with having to drive the elderly person around if they grounded them.
My mom turns 92 this summer. Still drives all over the place. (No - not that “all over the place”!) No more long trips, but she makes it to her doctor’s visist in the snow, lunches, church, concerts, etc.
She will drive the 2 miles from my brother’s house back home at night if she has to. But will usually have one of the other relatives bring her home as she doesn’t like driving at night anymore.
Never had an accident (not even the side of the garage door!), takes some class and test every so often to keep her insurance down too. But she is the exception, and is a very young 92. (She wanted to try to get up on water skis again on her 90th birthday, but we wouldn’t let her!)
“Can’t wait to see how this thread evolves ... me, I’m all for removing geezer access to the keys once they demonstrate that they can’t see over the dashboard.”
Looking at the posts so far I think most would agree that arbitrary age cutoffs without driver tests would be wrong.
Commercial airline pilots had an age 60 rule which removed them from the cockpit. Two years ago the FAA changed the rule to age 65.
A 56 year-old man drove his truck into a man’s living room. Men who are 56 shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
A cop shot himself in the foot with his unloaded pistol. Cops should not be allowed to carry guns.
A woman found her infant had drowned in the bathtub when she answered the phone in the kitchen. Women should not be allowed to bathe infants, and it should be illegal to call women when they’re washing up the kid.
Law by anecdote is grand. John Jay would be impressed.
This made me wonder how you signal you're coming through a store front at 70 mph. Honk?
And another thing ... those of you who have admitted on this thread that you KNOW your family member ought not be driving, but you haven’t taken the keys away yet?
Shame on you.
Yes, I know it’s damn hard. Yes, I know it sucks and you will have family drama and extra drains on your time and energy.
And as soon as your geezer relative kills someone, you will spend the rest of your life wishing you’d done the right thing.
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