Elderly drivers should be tested

[HeidiHoNeighbour]

91 year old killed a 3 year old in Edinburgh.
She’s been arrested.

Where I live (NW London) lots of elderly drivers are scarier than the teens racing.

A woman was killed in Sainsbury’s car park near me and the 80ish year old was upset he’d be late!

I think everyone should be retested every ten years.

YANBU

Mil has dementia. She hasn't been safe to drive for years now and indeed, about 4 years ago hd an accident where she was adamant a lorry ran into her but his dash cam proved she pulled out on him.

She dutifully filled in the licence renewal forms and self declared she had no issues but thankfully someone reported her. She refused to go for the assessment so got her licence taken off her. However we have had to hide her keys as she has forgotten she has no licence and gets nasty if we try and tell her she's not allowed to drive.

@Comefromaway

YANBU

Mil has dementia. She hasn't been safe to drive for years now and indeed, about 4 years ago hd an accident where she was adamant a lorry ran into her but his dash cam proved she pulled out on him.

She dutifully filled in the licence renewal forms and self declared she had no issues but thankfully someone reported her. She refused to go for the assessment so got her licence taken off her. However we have had to hide her keys as she has forgotten she has no licence and gets nasty if we try and tell her she's not allowed to drive.

So we have a system in place - and in this case it's working. Why make all the drivers (vast majority) who are fit to drive take a test just because a few aren't? What evidence do we have about pass/fail anyway? Isn't there a risk that a bad elderly driver might pass?

@MsAdoraBelleDearheartVonLipwig, I nearly hit a 20 something on a bike the other day when he pulled out in front of me without even looking. I braked so hard my handbag shot off into the passenger footwell.

A woman once pulled out of a side road and smacked straight into the side of me. Reckoned she hadn’t seen me. She was in her 30s.

Round here people constantly pull out in front of oncoming traffic on roundabouts, they’re rarely old. They also frequently make obscene gestures when you hoot at them.

@Feellikedancingyeah

No one should be driving at that age

What age? What would your cut-off be?

But the system didn't work. She was driving unsafely for several years including an accident that she caused and nothing was done.

I don't necessarily think elderly drivers should be made to take another driving test. But I think they should have to go to a DR for a medical assessment/eye test etc rather than it being a self declaration of being fit to drive.

Mil is at the stage where she cannot be left alone EVER in the house. But she still thinks she is fit to drive.

@Motoko

Hitting the accelerator instead of the brake seems to be a common occurrence with these elderly drivers.

P.J. O'Rourke wrote a long section about the work of Federal Agencies in the US in "Parliament of Whores" in the 90s. He chose the Department of Transportation and followed their investigation into a spate of "Sudden Acceleration Incidents" at the highest level.

They weren't allowed to release the real reason (that old people get confused). Instead they had to invent a new phrase "pedal misapplication" ...

Driver error may imply carelessness or willfulness in failing to operate a car properly.

Pedal misapplication is more descriptive of what occurs. It could happen to even the most attentive driver who inadvertently selects the wrong pedal and continues to do so unwittingly.

Drivers under the age of 25 cause 85% of all serious or fatal traffic accidents in the UK. But you want to blame the over 70’s? There is already a procedure in place for relatives or doctors to report concerns to the DVLA over older people’s fitness to drive. Wasting millions testing every driver every ten years is unnecessarily draconian.

I live in an area where the population is skewed towards elderly folk. Some of them are an absolute menace, same as the 'boy racer' types but for different reasons. Any that were chancers, speeders or sloppy when younger just carry that on, but with deteriorating eyesight and reaction times. This makes them worse! The number of older ladies I see who haven't even got their nose above the steering wheel is shocking. The number of old men who seem to be deaf and blind to the rules of the road is also absurd.
Let's clear up the 20/20 vision thing too; it's US terminology for visual acuity i.e. you can see something clearly 20 ft away. It came from a minimum requirement for WWII US pilots. It does not mean you don't need glasses and your acuity can be much better. We use 6/6 in the UK.

YANBU
My grandparents are only in their 70s but my grandfather cannot feel his feet and the pedals in his car but STILL he drives and not only that, he speeds because he ‘can’t see road signs’

@throckmorton, IME, the families that don't do anything (IME, the majority unfortunately) say it's because they don't want the burden of having to drive them around or have the costs of taxis incurred. Sometimes they defer to their parents. Next it would be they worry their parent will deteriorate if they don't drive and don't care about endangering others. Unfortunately, IME, it's not their children (the drivers' grandchildren) who get hurt when the dangerous drivers crash.

Before someone comments, the above concerns the families who say they won't do anything, not those who say they have or will try.

The benefit of regular re-tests of the elderly is that the deficiencies under discussion (eyesight, reaction time, cognitive impairment) are harder to hide during a retest than young drivers' driving at speed unsafely.

@Shouldbedancingyeah - and have you reported him to the DVLA?

Wasting millions testing every driver every ten years is unnecessarily draconian.

Exactly - and no-one has explained where all the money for enforcement is going to come from or the practicalities of the retesting - what happens if someone fails - can they retake? How many times? What should they do whilst they are waiting? No answers because, like most daft populist ideas, it is a nice theory but would be a practical nightmare to administer and enforce - especially in a country where parties who destroy any public services like the Police keep on winning elections.

Wasting millions testing every driver every ten years is unnecessarily draconian

Here's a radical idea ... why not make the drivers pay for it ? Like I had to pay for my SAC. £10/year seems a snip for the privilege of driving. That's £100 every ten years by my reckoning.

Periodic retests would be a good idea in general, though whether the needed examiners can be hired and trained needs to be considered. But I think it will do little to address drivers unfit to drive due to health issues, whatever their age, because health can deteriorate rapidly.

And as mentioned, notwithstanding some bad elderly drivers, the most dangerous people on the road are generally young male new drivers.

@Hingeandbracket

Wasting millions testing every driver every ten years is unnecessarily draconian.

Exactly - and no-one has explained where all the money for enforcement is going to come from or the practicalities of the retesting - what happens if someone fails - can they retake? How many times? What should they do whilst they are waiting? No answers because, like most daft populist ideas, it is a nice theory but would be a practical nightmare to administer and enforce - especially in a country where parties who destroy any public services like the Police keep on winning elections.

Driver pays for retest, of course.

A similar model to the MOT can be used. Your license is valid for X years. You need to pass a re-test before it expires, but if you fail the re-test you can still drive until the original expiry date.

Enforcement would be no different to how police currently tackle unlicensed drivers.

Periodic retests would be a good idea in general

Maybe not in every case ... a 10 yearly SAC course, and if you can't get through that, be put forward for a retest ?

though whether the needed examiners can be hired and trained needs to be considered.

If we have learned one thing these past 3 years, it's that there is always enough money. if a politician says "there isn't enough money" what they really mean is "we haev no intention of spending the money".

If there was a threat to Brexit from not testing older drivers, you'd have Capita signing a contract before the printer had cooled down.

So - as I said way upthread - any lack of action is not because of a lack of money. It's just there's no will for it.

The thing about elderly drivers is driving is notthe same when they started.Theres more cars on the road for 1 thing.

Plus they mightnt have accident themselves,doesnt mean they dont cause other people accidents.

@Babdoc

Drivers under the age of 25 cause 85% of all serious or fatal traffic accidents in the UK. But you want to blame the over 70’s? There is already a procedure in place for relatives or doctors to report concerns to the DVLA over older people’s fitness to drive. Wasting millions testing every driver every ten years is unnecessarily draconian.

The procedure is very complicated and only really possible if you are internet savvy and know enough details eg the person’s full address and date of birth. For someone like mil who refused to go to the dr and whose immediate family refused to do anything that might possibly upset her it doesn’t work. In the end we think a neighbour or more distant relative reported her.

An elderly gent driver who put his foot down on accelerator instead of brake (I assume), mounted pavement and knocked me over. Also when I was 30 weeks pregnant elderly lady drove into side of my car, luckily H was driving at the time. I ended up feeling sorry for her strangely enough as she cried buckets, was really distraught. Not so the male driver tho, rude as fuck considering he could have killed me. Elderly do need to take a re-test.

Driver pays for retest, of course.

OK

A similar model to the MOT can be used. Your license[sic] is valid for X years. You need to pass a re-test before it expires, but if you fail the re-test you can still drive until the original expiry date.

For an MOT you rely on a garage to do repairs if any are required - that's nothing like a driving test - and it side-steps the question I asked - how many retests would you allow? and over what period? Using your MOT-like system, how soon before expiry could a driver start taking tests and still guarantee the full renewal entitlement?

Enforcement would be no different to how police currently tackle unlicensed drivers.
So you don't envisage any increase in Police resources? Do you think there might be more people disqualified?

For an MOT you rely on a garage to do repairs if any are required - that's nothing like a driving test - and it side-steps the question I asked - how many retests would you allow? and over what period? Using your MOT-like system, how soon before expiry could a driver start taking tests and still guarantee the full renewal entitlement?

Isn't that what we pay our MPs and civil servants to grapple with ?

So you don't envisage any increase in Police resources? Do you think there might be more people disqualified?

See previous ....

@VinylDetective yes I’ve had all of that too but I don’t know what to suggest about them. At least elderly drivers can be assessed on their age, I don’t know about all the other twats that think they can drive better than they can.

I just saw a clip from Friday Night Dinner where Nan’s new flame drove her home into the driveway and kept crawling towards the house where he finally hit the wall. The family rushed out, he jumped out of the car and said furiously ‘your house smashed my light!’

This is an EU report that examines older drivers. It is worth a read. One conclusion (based on actual research as opposed to pub "logic") is that imposing a testing regime for older people makes no difference to accident rates.
ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/sites/roadsafety/files/ersosynthesis2015-olderdrivers25_en.pdf

But as usual, don't anyone let any actual research get in the way of the torches and pitchforks.

I think all drivers should be forced to have an eye test every 2-5 years. It's standard practice in many countries and it makes sense from a safety POV