WSJ: Older Drivers Fight To Stay on the Road

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Older Drivers Fight To Stay on the Road

As states clamp down on elderly motorists, seniors battle to keep their licenses -- and independence. Paying a toll, with a pedestrian on the windshield.
By MARK FRITZ
March 25, 2006; Page A1

(snip)

There are roughly 20 million drivers age 70 and older on the nation's roads, double the number two decades ago, and the total is expected to reach 30 million by 2020. "It's approaching critical mass," notes Robert Hodder, senior policy adviser for AARP, an advocacy group for older Americans. "So many individuals are approaching that point in their lives when they have to give up those keys." Motorists 85 and older now surpass 16-year-olds in frequency of fatalities per mile driven, and nearly match teenagers in rates of insurance claims for property damage, according to statistics from the insurance industry and the federal government. Drivers 65 and older are more likely than teens to have fatal multivehicle crashes at intersections, the data show.

(snip)

License-losing seniors are retaining lawyers, being coached to pass written tests, getting therapy to prepare for road tests and trading information about which motor-vehicle offices are the most lenient with older people. Harold Kocken, senior director of driver licensing for the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, said at a recent conference that old people were even using fake licenses to stay on the road.

Last October, a 93-year-old St. Petersburg, Fla., man drove up to a toll booth, oblivious that the dead body of a pedestrian he had hit down the road was embedded in his windshield. The windshield incident spurred two state lawmakers to propose a bill requiring doctors to report to state licensing authorities people 75 and older who may be unfit to drive. But the Florida chapter of AARP successfully lobbied lawmakers to eliminate the age requirement in the proposed bill. "You can't make a law based on a person's age," says Bentley Lipscomb, head of AARP in Florida.

(snip)

At least 27 states set an age at which people must renew their driver's license more often, get tested for physical limitations more frequently or stop renewing by mail. Seven states require doctors to report health problems associated with driving risk, and many others permit them to do so. Maine begins requiring vision tests for renewals after a motorist turns 40. Iowa customizes licenses, limiting certain elderly people, for example, to driving along specified roads in their hometowns.

California's licensing laws bar drivers older than 70 from renewing by mail. The state gives wide latitude to in-office DMV personnel to judge whether aging drivers remain mentally sharp enough to continue driving. In addition, California for years has required doctors to report patients who might be medically unfit to drive. In 1998, the state added an explicit requirement to report Alzheimer's and other forms of age-related dementia.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114324893191008102.html (subscription)

[NMDemDist2]

1. the dead body of a pedestrian......was embedded in his windshield

:wtf:

If that wasn't so tragic, it would be hilarious. :banghead:

[question everything]

2. I know. I had to read this twice (nt)

[Warpy]

3. The problem with a lot of these places, and Florida is among the

worst, is that seniors often bought their retirement homes when they were in their 50s or early 60s and healthy and didn't think about what a future without a car would be like. There was NO public transportation in my dad's town unless you considered a couple of overworked and overbooked cabs and one busline that ran from the mainland down the highway through the two barrier islands and back again. My pop would have been helpless without his car and only cataract surgery allowed him to keep his license until his death at 89. He was sensible enough to restrict his own driving to just around town and during daylight hours, though.

Even a golf cart wouldn't have worked, as there were main roads to everything he needed to survive, and golf carts are much to slow for main roads.

There are people in nursing homes and assisted living facilities there for the sole reason that they could no longer drive and see to their own needs.

I have a great deal of sympathy for these old folks who are jumping through hoops so they can keep driving. They have no alternative.

[AlCzervik]

4. My Nana turned in her license about 4 years ago now when she had

problems with night vision, it was a sad for her but she understood that she may end up hurting herself or someone else.