Sunday, August 02, 2009
Keep a closer eye on older drivers
Christian Trejbal
Recent columns
- Baptists might leave downtown Blacksburg
- A theater rises between town and campus
- Making sense of local elections
- Voters have only themselves to blame
From the RoundTable blog
Last weekend a car crashed into the sign in the parking lot of Christiansburg's Wades Supermarket. The car crumpled on one of the poles. Police and emergency medical services arrived. The driver -- thankfully only the driver -- went to the hospital, injured but alive.
She was 85 years old.
Her name is not important. And maybe her age had nothing to do with the accident. Maybe something in the car malfunctioned as it raced out of control.
Maybe not. Maybe she hit the gas instead of the brake. Maybe she became disoriented.
We will probably never know, and in Virginia, as in most states, lawmakers have instructed the Department of Motor Vehicles not to care.
There are more seniors on the road today than ever before, and their ranks are swelling with baby boomers. Medicine and healthy living allow people to remain more active at older ages than just a few decades ago.
Older drivers are as likely to cause an accident as teenagers. According to some studies, they are even more dangerous than teens. The difference is that teens' skills will improve with experience whereas seniors' will decline.
Statistically, drivers start to slip around their 65th birthday. Their reflexes slow, vision blurs and joints stiffen.
Some few remain as sharp and alert as ever, but they are the exceptions. As much as people hate to admit it, age brings physical and mental changes.
When it comes to teens, lawmakers gleefully heap restrictions on drivers -- limited passengers, driving curfew, no cellphones. If they get their first license at 16 or 17, it expires on their 20th birthday.
It is amazing lawmakers survived their own teen years without such restrictions.
When it comes to older drivers, however, the commonwealth looks the other way. The only additional restriction is that drivers 80 and older must renew their license in person and pass the easy vision test.
Under recent changes, licenses are good for eight years. A 79-year-old could renew online and not face a vision test until he turns 87.
Eight years is recklessly long to go without checking in on drivers whose skills can decline rapidly. After some age, say 65, drivers should have to renew their licenses more often, maybe every four years. And at the renewal, they should demonstrate their competence to drive with more than a vision test.
Many senior drivers would pass the tests, but good tests would identify the most dangerous drivers.
Where the state does not protect drivers, families and doctors should by reporting seniors who should not drive to the DMV. State law also exempts such reporting from doctor-client privilege and promises anonymity. The department will then follow up with an investigation.
The problem is that no relative wants to be the bad person who takes away grandma's independence, and few doctors have the time or desire to get involved in that mess.
If the state tested senior drivers more frequently, it could provide cover. There would be no individual villain, only recognition of public safety and individual ability.
If all of the risky senior drivers lost their licenses, pressure on public services would increase. Seniors still would need to travel to the store, the doctor and the gym. Towns like Christiansburg could no longer get by without adequate public transportation, and in-home assistance programs would need better funding, too.
Those things cost money, but they are cheaper than paying for retirement homes or the costs of auto accidents.
Not that it will ever come to that. The danger is clear and easily preventable, but lawmakers will not act.
Teens are easy targets. They cannot vote or, if 18, rarely do. They also have no powerful lobby like the AARP.
Most important, no lawmaker is a teen, but many are senior drivers. The hardest thing of all is admitting you yourself might put lives in danger whenever you get behind the wheel.
