Driving over 70

[Veryveryconcerned]

It took me time to decide but after getting other people’s opinions I reported an over 70 driver to the DVLA due to poor eyesight. Prior to the person’s 70th birthday they had said they were getting rid of their 3.5 tonne van as they said they would not pass the test to be able to continue driving it. The person is virtually blind in one eye and the eyesight is not good in the other. They do not get their eyes tested because they do not want to have to stop driving. My concern is the other people on the roads.
Does anyone know how long it takes and what exactly the DVLA do when they receive a report. I have reported it anonymously but it was about 8 weeks ago which is very concerning.
Am I worrying unnecessarily?

They do , gp informs dvla of Amy health issues that affect driving and also people like specsavers ,and in certain cases there licence is suspended the same day , but if people ring up / e mail etc dvla have to check on a driver , also if the report of a bad driver or eye sight if anonymous say with reg . Plate can take weeks as dvla have to check with gps and eye people reports can take time to come back from gps etc in some cases anonymous reports can be false ,I.e. report sent by someone who hates the person driving there car .

Well nobody is stopping you, presumably you go for your annual eye test? I think it's annual once you are over 60?

I think anyone of any age finds the increase in traffic stressful.

And with sleep, what about parents with young babies or indeed menopausal women who no longer sleep as well as they did. Do you want to get them off the roads as well?

no obviously not

I have worked with the elderly for decades; i know what i'm talking about

What your friend would be able to stamp on the break if a child ran out in front of them? If you lived near me you would understand why I said that. It's a town which had massive growth in the 1970s those people have aged and stayed. There are also 6 retirement complexes and another on the way. Many of these people drive dreadfully. So I expect doctors to prevent injuries and death of road users by telling people not to drive.

I have to assume you are not aware that cars can be adapted for their brakes to be operated by hand ? No need to stamp on them.

Thank you

Cars can be adapted.
I have a friend with MS who has one useless leg (from an accident), but her other is fine. Her car is adapted to reflect that.
Another can't stamp on any pedals as he is less than 4ft tall. His car is adapted to have everything operated by hand.

That's not what I am talking about, I am on about the old men in particular who insist on driving normal cars. I have come across a guy driving a manual car using his walking stick to depress the clutch. Several men with dementia driving...I've seen one get in the passenger seat of his own car and wait to be driven....not people who have made their cars driveable to suit their physical situation

Of course I have eye tests every year. I want to be tested for fitness to drive.
Everybody thinks they are fine, even when they are not.

But that applies for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 70, 80, 90 year olds.

Define ‘fitness’.

Agree it does need doing for everyone regardless of age on at least a few yearly basis, maybe more for older people. I certainly was not claiming all older people are like this, I know many that are better and safer drivers than people half their age!

I also know how awful it is to be threatened with the loss of your licence, I have to declare a medical condition to the DVLA, and one yearly crap result could lose me my licence.

If the doctor has only just diagnosed your father then they can only advise that he no longer drives so maybe you need to check that's what the GP actually said. My mother-in-law drove for a couple of years before her children took her keys away as it became obvious that she was no longer safe to drive. The issue was that because the three "children" lived 70, 150 and 200 miles away they had to rely on friends and neighbours to say how her driving was as when we visited one of us would always drive. The issue was they all said she was okay until she was caught by a granddaughters husband driving at 10 miles and hour with the windscreen fully misted up. When one of her sons took the keys away and sold the car even with the Alzheimers for the nest two years she still remembered what he'd done! Friends and neighbours then changed their tune and said "thank heavens" that the car had been taken away as she her driving had become appalling but didn't speak up because they didn't want to take away her independence! If you do allow your father to carry on driving there has to be a point before it goes too far that you have to be honest and mercenary and stop him driving. As with the mother-in-law she "promised" not to drive at night but she did which as with the misted windscreen (because she forgot how the operate the blowers and air conditioning) were the final straws but the family should have stopped her a few months before.

No, the Consultant was very clear that with the score my Dad got in the testing, he was not allowed to drive with immediate effect. He actually has "Mixed Dementia"; a combination of Vascular Dementia and Alzheimer's, which is not something I'd heard of before, so I wonder if it was that, or that coupled with how low he scored on the testing that resulted in the immediacy of the decision.

He's actually coping better without his car than I had thought he would so far, he's finally making use of his free bus pass!

In my experience, the two groups who I've had the most issues with on the road are young lads aged 18-25ish and elderly men aged c.75+. I live in a rural village and many of our roads are single carriageway country lanes, lots of them are NSL and unlit at night to boot. The young lads tend to come speeding up behind, sit up your arse for a half mile or so, and then go roaring past at 90mph, around the bend and away. The elderly men on the other hand, they tend to pootle along at 20-25mph, randomly brake, stop dead just around blind bends so you can practice emergency stops when you encounter them, swerve from side to side so they're either about to go in the ditch or are partially over the centre line, and treat give-way markers as a sign to "please go without looking and don't indicate either". Most recent encounter was a man who decided to reverse back up the slip-road of the dual carriageway because he didn't realise it was a slip-road and thought it was a continuation of the country road he'd just been on. How do I know this? Because when he realised I was behind him and was not willing to also reverse up the slip-road to let him continue, he got out of his car and started shouting at me that needed to go back up the slip-road.

There are far two many drivers who shouldn't be on the roads full stop but two particular demographics are statistically more likely to be involved in accidents which is why it's only right that there should be more driving controls targeted at them.

‘Spritely 96 year old’. I despair.

Why?

Perhaps we should just do away with the OAP too - if older people are just as healthy and capable as anyone else they don't need to retire from work do they?

This is outrageous. An 80+yo man with Alzheimer's should not be driving.

Why aren't you driving the both of you around? If it's because you can't drive then you're no judge of whether he's fit to.

From 70 onwards you have to renew your licence every 3 years and have to sign to say you have had a (satisfactory) eye test in within the previous 3 years. So age is relevant here

How does that phrase go?

Tell me you know very little about Alzheimer's without telling me you know very little about Alzheimer's.

You can't stop another adult driving and you can't take their keys away or sell their car without their permission.

Not going to answer the question about why he's doing the driving instead of you?

So agree , the first thing is the younger age group should not have driving licence untill they are 25 , they are thinking of it in Australia and Canada and fully agree with older people being tested for driving reflexes time and eyesight , all road users should have eye tests every 2 years even cyclists this is safe for every one . I was at a local supermarket and a lady tried to park her suv bus and could not do it she was mid thirty dvla need everyone to be tested for there eye sight every 2 years and a doctors check once a year for safety ,

Do you mean spritely for someone who is almost a century old?
or ‘comparable with a 40 year old’ kind of spritely?