100 year old drivers

[Pebbles16]

So apparently this is entertainment. It's terrifying. Personal opinion is that everyone should retake their test every year (with the licence renewal). And it should be competency based. These people may be judged by the experts as being okay but I would not like to meet them on the road.

Wouldn't that be very expensive though?

I disagree with tests yearly - I think anxiety would mean failure for those otherwise competent and you’d be removing a means of independence for elderly people (with no way of replacing it). Most elderly drivers know their limits, and don’t travel far, or at any great speed. There are more serious accidents caused by poor driving in new adolescent drivers, and the very tired. I’d worry about them first.

Sport that was meant to say every 10 years (with licence renewal). Yes it might be expensive but driving is expensive.

Sorry. Not sport!

Callamia. This is the age old argument that adolescents cause accidents. And they may well do. But so do elderly drivers and there is something that can be done about this cohort.

Every 10 years is ridiculous.
After a certain age say 70 maybe a retest could be wise. Imagine the stress of a resit then failing and losing your job at say 30!

At 100 years old i hope I’m still driving

If fit/heathy, then older drivers are safer than younger ones (look at insurance premiums - you don't get more evidence-based and cash driven than that industry).

Annual tests up to age 30 would probably have greater impact on road safety.

I would say that perhaps rather than having to have a full retest there should be a GP sign off or a medical at say 70, and then every 5-10 years thereafter. Lots of elderly people can drive fine, or they accept their limitations - e.g. my 94 year old great aunt who has had two hip replacements very rarely takes her car out these days, based on her own comfort levels. But then you get others who either can't accept that their driving ability is compromised because of illness that has come with their age, and you get families wondering if they should hide the car keys/involve their GP to get their licence taken off them.

I don't think a medical is enough. Lots of old people may be physically fine but have very slow reaction times and drive dangerously slowly. It needs to be a combination of a medical and a test to assess driving ability.

Why is a test every 10 years ridiculous?
I think a shorter test every 10years with licence renewal would mean that people kept up their skills and may be more inclined to drive as they are supposed to.
Possibly a system where you get 2 goes before you lose your licence so you have some warning if you are going to need to make arrangements because you are going to fail.
Yes it might be stressful but driving a car is a lot of responsibility and requires lots of skills which we should keep up to date and clearly people don't. There are an awful lot of poor drivers on the road and we could do with improving peoples skills across the board.

I think this applies across the board not just to older drivers

There was a thread debating the older driver/young driver who's most dangerous thing.

IIRC although the young driver crash stats are bad at first glance, when you look at 'crashes per mileage' so to speak the older drivers were much worse.

driving a car is a lot of responsibility and requires lots of skills which we should keep up to date and clearly people don't. So why not simply insist that everyone has a refresher driving course after, say, 25 years of driving and again after 50? Refer people for further assessment if there seems to be a problem with reaction times.

Driving tests are stressful for anyone. But a new driver is seeking to expand their life, and failing the test won't cause any changes in how they do things at the moment. Whereas an older driver faces immediate limitation of their life and perhaps giving up the things that make life worth living. So much more stressful, and their performance during the test may bear no resemblance to their normal driving.

In principal i agree with . But i guess the problem is who's going to pay for these millions of compulsory re-tests, courses and lessons? Will it be means tested?

Who's going to police the fall out? (lots of people needing their cars badly enough to risk driving without their license)(rural areas with crap bus services spring to mind).

A compulsory eye test at x age might be better? Easier? Cheaper?

But it's not just a sight test. As PPs have said, it's your reaction times and changes in the way people drive etc. Yes it would be expensive for people but then so is tax and insurance.

In principal i agree with . But i guess the problem is who's going to pay for these millions of compulsory re-tests, courses and lessons? Will it be means tested

Drivers should pay. Even if it cost £100 every 10 years, the cost is negliglible as part of the cost of driving and owning and running a car. I too think that there should be more monitoring of drivers as there are some terrifyingly dangerous and incompetent drivers out there that kill and seriously injure innocent people.

Perhaps a compulsory 2 hour session with a driving instructor every 10 years where they assess your driving and check your eyesight and knowlegdge of the highway code. You would either pass or be scored as 'some improvement needed' where you would need a short refresher course, maybe around a day's worth, or the worst drivers would have their licences revoked, and need to have more lessons and pass a full driving test.

My grandfather started to get altzimers and became a danger on the roads. My dad had a word with the doctor who called him in for a routine appointment and tactfully told him his eye site was no longer good enough to drive.

I completely agree with the retest idea by the way. (Where i live the average age is quite high. Hardly a day goes by where i don't see a near miss or two of some description caused by a person who obviously couldn't see or react properly).

I'm just looking at the practicalities though. Would the cost be around £100 per person? What if they don't have the £100? I imagine the biggest problems would surround the cost of rolling this out, and then the ongoing policing of it.

And at the risk of turning this political - we know older people are the most likely to turn out and vote. They 'aint going to vote for this! :)

I think that maybe insurance should go up unless the person has had a 'driving review' with a signed of expert e.g. driving instructor or institute of advanced motorists within the last 3 years. That would encourage more people to have their driving voluntarily assessed. (So more of a nudge method than a compulsory retest).

My DF is in his late 80s and my DB and I both 'check' his driving when we see him and exchange our opinions. It would massively impact his quality of life (and DMs) if he couldn't drive, so we wouldn't want him to stop before he needed to. He has started self-restricting and e.g. no long drives longer distances at night.

I live in Spain and have changed my license for a Spanish one. Everyone has to renew every 10 years, with a medical, eye test and a simulator driving test (much easier than it sounds). After 70 I think it's every year and if you have eyesight problems too or other medical issues.
I think that's reasonable. If you're too anxious to do a medical, you shouldn't be on the road.

Renewal (including medical) costs under €50, can't remember how much.

I caught the end of the programme by chance. I was amazed all of those drivers were passed as safe to drive
My ddad is 82 and still drives pretty well and is still confident on motorways etc although I have notied his reaction times aren't as fast as they were and his parking is abysmal. I dread the day he can't drive anymore though - to him his car is freedom but I'd definitely have to stop him driving if i thought he was a danger. Having seen the low expectations of the 100year old drivers, he's clearly no problem at all yet!

I don't see the point in competence tests every 10 years. A 73 year old may well be a great driver...an 83 year old possible not so much.

Personally I feel there should be an upper age limit to holding a DL. Maybe 80 or 85. The risk after that is too great imo.

I think that a review every 10 years is fine until 70, then I think it would need to be more frequently. Drivers 80+ should be checked every year.