AIBU to think drivers (more so elderly) need to be retested?

[ayonoosh]

I know I'll probably get lumped with being ageist here. I want to preface I think all drivers should be tested after perhaps 10 years but once at retirement age or 70s, every few years?

I live in a town that's predominantly one way. In the past 7 days I have seen 2 elderly drivers run red lights. One elderly driver go the wrong way up a very well signed street, with other drivers beeping and flashing and they just kept going, one elderly driver driving on the opposite side of the road going onto a short duel carriage way (!!) and an elderly driver drive down the middle of the bollards in Tesco.

this isn't an unusual amount of it too, there are so many posts on the local community pages with cars and registrations and people posting about it. It is so incredibly dangerous. We have a uni in town too and have our fair share of young drivers, I do see them hurtling around town at stupid speeds but they aren't as common as the elderly drivers reported.

I know young drivers cause more crashes, but elderly people tend to have low mileage bias, I think if they drove mile for mile the stats may differ. Elderly drivers responsible for deaths have increased by 42% in the last decade.

AIBU to think mandatory testing for all, especially for elderly should be implemented? I know the money, time, stubbornness, etc etc make it unrealistic, and there are terrible drivers of all ages of course. But if age related reaction times are something that doesn't apply to you, then surely it's a tick box activity and back to driving?

im seeing increasingly more elderly pootling at 50 in the middle lane on the M25, as well as stupid taxi drivers doing it too. they ought to be retested too.

what's everyone's thoughts?

There should at least be a requirement to submit an eye test result every 5 years. (All drivers )

Although I regularly see elderly drivers driving very very slowly it's youngsters (usually male) that I see literally every day going way over the speed limit, overtaking on solid white line, overtaking on bends, brows of hills etc.

Twice on Sunday I had to brake hard to avoid a car coming towards me on the wrong side of the road as they were overtaking. Both times the road behind me was completely clear!

I have not moaned about young or old driver s l agree with you l said l passed my advanced driving test at a 98 %pass rate l am late 70 s the driving instructor said that l had as fast a rate of reaction as he did and he is 48 . But as most pedestrians and cyclists tend to be road unaware we have to be ready for them and as l said l would not be against re testing or shall we call it monitoring to save my life and others lives l agree with fully . I have not insulted old or young, l did point out some younger drivers may not be that good but many are very good . I think many years ago that young drivers where not aloud big cars only say like a one litre engine untill they where a certain age say 21 l still feel its a good idea . But we'll done for bringing up the subject . I will point out that my lovely daughter has 6 points and high insurance and she only has a Toyota yaris so l don't know . I have no points and my insurance is an average 70 year old l only have a corsa as well not a big suv as it would not go in de garage hum .This leads to the question should suv drivers have a special licence as they are so big hum ?

There's also a real need for our towns to be age friendly, we all know of complicated difficult junctions which cause issues for elderly and inexperienced drivers.I'm an advanced motorist through my driving at work and still know I'm learning every day.
If one way systems are being breached by older people is the signage etc sufficient.We live in an aging society and our roads and attitudes also need to adapt to this.

Is that fatal to anyone in a crash or caused to others though?
Because I suspect that if an 85yo plus is involved in any sort of accident, even quite minor, it's more likely to be fatal to them than younger people.

As 100% of the crashes caused by an 85yo plus will involve an 85yo plus, then that would potentially artificially increase the fatality rate in comparison to younger aged accidents.

What you'd need to look at is others killed to get a better look at the statistics.

I have looked at insurance data. If I’ve got it wrong so have all the insurance companies whose income depends on getting this right.

The graph upthread doesn’t give a source with information such is time, location etc or include lower level accidents but it broadly shows the pattern I’ve described - older drivers safer than young drivers. It is slightly different at the 85+ end which is why I’m interested in the time and location of the source data.

Even so it shows rates not absolute numbers and younger drivers are on the road in larger numbers. You are far more likely to be in an accident with a young driver than an old driver which is why insurers will charge more for young drivers and gradually increase for older drivers only when they hit 86+.

My father is 75 and lives in my home country. He still has his truck licence but he needs to have extended health check every two years. He has to pass dementia test, sight test etc. I don’t know why he wants to keep his truck licence because the probability him driving one is very low. But I like him to go to health check to see that he is healthy enough to drive.

i think this kind of extended health checks would be beneficial for over 80 years old.

Surely if older people were a real problem then their insurance would go through the roof ?

I suspect over time it will be the insurance industry that regulates it. For example demanding that an eye test and a doctors certificate after say every five years is necessary in order to continue.

Honestly, I think practically it would be impossible to implement.

But theoretically, I think that a driving licence should only be valid for 10 years before a retest. Simply for the fact that we all get into bad habits. The idea that you could pass your test at 17 and never be asked about your driving again until you are 70 is mad to be honest!

Perhaps we should have to repeat our theory test every 10-15 years to ensure everyone has recently reviewed the highway code? That could be easily implemented online and could do a hell of a lot for road safety.

Or maybe if you booked a refresher lesson with an accredited driving instructor and had the details logged onto your driving licence number (relatively simple to do), you could benefit from reduced insurance premiums? I remember when I was learning to drive, my instructor asked one of my parents to join me in the back of the car because he wanted me to get used to having passengers - and my mum said for months afterwards she was driving so much more carefully because she was hearing my instructors voice in her head talking about checking mirrors etc.

Everyone should be made to ride a bike first, before moving on to a motorcycle, car, & finally HGV. Extreme maybe but get them on the road aged 25, & off at 50. It’s not just old people that are dangerous drivers. But in saying that I know a 70+ bloke who drinks & drives daily, he’s had 2 accidents. I did once ask if he thought he should drive seeing as he’d had a drink. He told me he was only going round the corner 🤔 If they took his licence he’d still drive. I also know a family who had 2 kids who passed their tests aged 17. Their parents got them flash cars, & they both died in those cars before they were 18. Tests every year for all.

I passed my test at 25. I really don't think I was ready to start learning at 17.

My thoughts.

Every driver should have to take their theory test at regular intervals, say every five years, and have proof of a recent eye test.

No-one should be able to have a driving ban reduced or excused because of hardship.

About 25% of people are unfit to hold a licence, some for health reasons, many because of conduct. By that I include anyone convicted of theft should be banned (more difficult to use a car to get away), anyone with drug convictions never hold a licence again, and also paedophiles be banned for life so they cannot entice children into a car.

@C8H10N4O2I agree about family members often not doing the right thing. My MIL’s mother was told not to drive, but she kept doing it, and my god the fussing from MIL about how she couldn’t possibly report her own mother blah blah. I’d have done it but I didn’t know enough details - they don’t live nearby, so all I know is her name and the town, not a full street address or anything.
In the end FIL did it (with MIL’s knowledge). I say “in the end” but it didn’t take that long for FIL to put his foot down. I don’t know that MIL would ever have done it herself though. I think she worried that it wouldn’t really be anonymous.

The DVLA website isn’t the easiest thing, and it’s not simple to find the area to report though.

Personally, I think everyone should be retested every ten years and then every five years once you're over state retirement age. There are too many poor drivers on the road. (There are also too many without valid driving licences too, but that's also something that needs to be dealt with!).

All it needs is political will to increase the number of examiners and maybe increase the number of exam centres. If you can't recruit enough, then you have to increase the wages etc. until the market equilibrium is reached. If that means having to increase the cost of driving tests, then it has to be done.

My parents lived in Spain, you have to drive a simulation to get your licence renewed there. Not sure if it's age based as they were retired when they got Spanish licences

These people who participate in Escape to the Country type programmes don't seem to think about the future. They want to move to places which are 10+ miles to a reasonable sized supermarket. Fine if they drive. If unable to - permanently or temporarily (after surgery) - they are screwed. Doubt the supermarkets will deliver that far out.

The brother of my mum's friend and DH moved to somewhere remote. DH has developed a health issue and three times a year has to travel to a hospital 75 miles away. Sometimes, depending on the time of the appointment, book a hotel near to the hospital. If they stayed where they lived, the then local hospital was 2 miles away and bus went along bottom of their road.

No, if people are aging and their reaction times are slower; no adaption will speed that up. They need to be honest with themselves and stop driving.

people are good and bad at different things but aging is a part of life, you hang your keys up and prepare for life without a car. What adaptions do you want to see? Signs are clear, if you can't see them with glasses, don't drive. Roads are wider now, to for bigger cars. as I said, no amount of adaption (what could possibly be done?) will replace reaction times.

if you can't cope with the roads, get off them.

There is a 6 month waiting list for 17-19 year olds to have the practical test.

Also you never hear of young drivers driving down the wrong side of motorways, dual carriageways (unless they are completely pissed) as its elderly drivers.

I agree, but too many people tend not to think about practicalities of them getting older and infirm. We currently live in a large village with poor public transport. We are within walking distance of the village amenities such as library, chemist, and Co-Op but it's about a mile away, and we're not deluded enough to think we'll always be able to walk that distance or that we'll always be able to drive to the village amenities nor the nearby towns and small city for things like banking, dentists, hospital, etc.

Our plan is to move when we hit state pension age and retire. We're looking at over 55's developments in nearby towns where there'll be more amenities on the doorstep, better bus/train routes, closer to GP surgery, dentists, opticians, etc. There's a new McCarthy & Stone development that's top of our list at the moment as it's literally within sight of a Tesco, has a good bus route bus stops right outside, and about 5 minute walk from the town's "main street" with post office, opticians, dentist, chemist, etc. It'd be ideal! And yes, we know about the ongoing costs of such places and the difficulties in selling on in the future, but it would work for us. In fact, we're also considering buying similar in a different small city at the other side of the country so we can have two "homes", as we'd be able to sell our current relatively large house and use the proceeds to buy two small "retirement flats".

That's even if we don't "need" to be so close to amenities and can still drive. It's crazy to wait until we are infirm before we start looking to move as it's probably too late by then and we won't have the ability nor headspace for a major house move.

You have to do it before you need to do it.

I agree, there's no need to make roads "age friendly". Road signage is already clear. If you're eyesight isn't good enough or you can't remember what road signs mean, or you're mind is too slow to process what the road signs are telling you, you really shouldn't be on the roads at all.

I have had 5 accidents in the last 3 years. All have been young men in cars they have adapted up and has always been their fault. Last one admitted he had only passed 7 weeks before. Boy racers where I live are more of a liability 🤷🏼‍♀️

It does, my elderly relatives insurance went up massively before they gave up.

Yep, I see it multiple times a week and it's always an elderly pootling along in a Honda jazz through the very well signed NO ENTRY through Farnham town!

happens all the time.
ive never seen a young driver do it.

Yeah they are a problem too. I just don't see as many incidents with youngsters. But they are the problem.